


Coulson's Eleven

by copperbadge



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Prison, Canadian Shack, Chitauri - Freeform, Gen, Imprisonment, NUKES...IN...SPAAAAAACE, Outlaws, Prison Breaks, Reformed Loki, Tesseract, Wrongful Imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 06:39:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Vanko destroyed the Stark Expo, SHIELD instituted a Superhuman Detention program, designed to capture and hold dangerous people -- dangerous people like Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and others who made themselves noticeable. The superhumans SHIELD has imprisoned -- and some SHIELD agents themselves -- have other ideas about what constitutes 'dangerous'...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the brainchild of assvengrrs on Tumblr, who **[suggested an AU](http://assvengrrs.tumblr.com/post/64126634900/avengers-au-s-h-i-e-l-d-detains-superheroes)** which entranced me so much I had to write a fic. The concept and some of the dialogue from this fic come from that post. 
> 
> Beta Thanks to Knotta, Foxy, and Gypsy for fixing what was broken and reminding me of Jane Foster's awesome.

It began with an idea.

***

"I'm not technically a prisoner," Tony said, once he'd introduced himself, offered Bruce a backhanded compliment, and poured a glass of very good scotch for each of them. Bruce, sitting at the table across from him, cocked his head.

"Funny, 'cause it looks that way to me," he said. He still felt groggy from whatever they'd dosed the Hulk with to put him down, but he was inclined not to smash at the moment. Reconnaissance was important. So was control. 

"No, technically I'm a consultant, and SHIELD's guest," Tony continued, with a dry smile. "Their concession to the fact that I'm famous and powerful and rich, and if I disappeared completely, people would notice."

"But you're still ultimately stuck here," Bruce said, indicating the lab, the two spartan bedrooms beyond, the single bathroom. The blast-proof door. 

"Well, yes, but that's the deal we struck," Tony replied.

"What have they got on you?"

"Who," Tony said. They'd given him a remarkable amount of tech and leeway with it, Bruce saw; Tony's hands danced across a clear readout screen and he swung it around to face Bruce. A pretty redheaded woman was walking down a hallway, past a sign reading STARK INDUSTRIES. 

"Pepper Potts," Bruce said. "I read about her. She's your CEO. She's in on this?"

"Christ, no," Tony replied disdainfully. He looked up at the image of her with something close to worship on his face. "SHIELD saw what happens when I'm given a prison and some tech; they knew better than to just lock me up. She's the hostage."

"Explain this to me," Bruce said. 

"How much do you know about the incident at the Stark Expo?"

"Not a lot," Bruce said.

"SHIELD got hold of her in the confusion. They infected her with a virus -- super-new biotech stuff, cutting edge. It's dormant for now. If I try to leave, they flip the switch and my girlfriend goes bye-bye." 

Bruce stared at him in horror. 

"Nick Fury's very good at psychological warfare," Tony said contemplatively. "It's the same reason you're in this room with me."

Bruce held out his glass. Tony poured out another few fingers of scotch. 

"See, they've got my suit," he continued. "But I set them up; they can't dismantle it without cutting it, and if they cut it, it's rigged to blow, so they can't do jack with it. Same with this baby," he added, tapping his chest. "Try to remove it or access it and the reactor will also blow. I'll die, but I'll take half the carrier with me. So I'm safe. And they think -- "

"You can keep me safe."

"Because you can control it now, right?"

"Mainly."

"They knew that. That's why they brought you in now. If you trigger big green, they flip the switch on Pepper unless I trigger the reactor. In that case, we both go down, but she lives," Tony said.

"She's that important to you?"

"She's everything to me. Don't think I won't kill us both for her." 

"Does she know she's infected?"

Tony was silent, watching the camera angles change as they followed Potts down hallways and through lobbies, into a conference room. He wiped the screen clear. 

"Anyway, they give me all the cool toys and plenty of leisure time to keep Stark Industries afloat with new gadgets. It's not that different from my life before, except I don't get to leave the workshop and I don't get laid. Food's all right, and they let me buy my own booze. Not a bad deal for you either; at least you're in from the cold."

"Calcutta wasn't cold."

"Figuratively speaking. Come on, I'll give you the tour. It's like Candyland up in here."

"More like Mousetrap," Bruce muttered as Tony began showing him around the lab that was now their home. 

But that wasn't the idea.

***

Neither was this:

Steve woke in the little white fake-hospital room and he did try to escape once, but the blast doors were sealed tight. He could have threatened the woman they sent to him, the one they dressed up like a dame from his time and tried to fool him with, but they knew he wouldn't hurt her. There was no point in bluffing. 

She explained to him, kindly, that he could have anything he wanted: books, films, even something called the Internet, whatever that was, but he wasn't at liberty to leave. For national security purposes.

Steve didn't buy that for a hot minute, but he needed time to think this through, and he needed resources before he could try again. 

He asked if they'd give him a real radio, but he didn't listen to it much. The news was incomprehensible, the music just noise, and the talk-radio was mostly obscene. He read history books about the decades he'd slept through, and watched movies that sounded interesting but frequently turned out to be pretty racy. 

He asked for a real prison cell, or at least a different room, but they wouldn't agree. So he spent his days in the big steel room, and at night he slept in the little white room with the fake decor, like some kind of purgatory for his sins. 

They knew what would happen if they tried to transfer him. 

He had food. He had some workout equipment, even, though it took him a while to figure out how to use it. He had entertainment. Once, a guard had asked him if he'd like some female companionship and, when he'd said no in a horrified voice, asked if wanted male companionship instead.

"I don't need a prostitute," he said. "I'm not going to be in here forever, am I?"

They hadn't answered that. His days began to blur together, one long stream of grey and white. 

Maybe it was best. From what he could work out about the world outside, he wouldn't fit there anyway. 

Then one day they brought in a second bed, another desk, and a friend for him. 

"Hi," the guy said -- just a kid, hardly a grown man, but with the look in his eye Steve recognized. This was a kid who'd been to war.

"I'm Peter," the kid continued, and proceeded to fill Steve's quiet, sad prison with noise and light and life. "Nice digs, very, uh, hipster. Is the food here any good? Have you ever seen Escape From Alcatraz? BTW, I can walk on walls, I hope that won't freak you out."

***

"How many of us do you keep here, in little jars like this?" Thor once asked one of his captors.

"Three others," the man said. "About to be four." 

The day they brought his brother to him, paraded Loki past him, Thor screamed his lungs out, roaring in rage and impotence that they had his brother captive as well. Loki turned his head as they passed, carriage erect as any proud son of Asgard, lifted his chained wrists, and put a finger to his mouth.

"It's of no great matter, brother," he called, as Thor raged in his glass prison. "Once I get free, I'll come for you." 

That definitely wasn't the idea.

***

This was the idea. 

Natasha has never been comfortable with what was done -- what she'd done -- to Pepper. It was a betrayal of trust, and it cut her deeply to have done it, however necessary it seemed at the time. With Stark healthy, they had to control him. At least, that was what Fury said. He didn't need to explain to her why Pepper Potts was put to use; that was self-evident. 

When she could, Natasha looked in on Stark to make sure that, if not happy, he was at least not miserable. When they took down Hulk outside of Calcutta, she'd made sure, persuasively, that he was put in with Stark. 

The prison cameras all fed to a single bank of monitors in a single room, which meant that when she watched them, she saw Steve Rogers whether she wanted to or not. Sad, lonely Steve, who rejected prostitutes out of hand and only asked for books and a real radio, which he then couldn't bear to listen to. She didn't think he even knew he could ask for the music he wanted, the music he missed. 

And she saw how he lit up when Peter was put in with him, how he took the boy under his wing and enjoyed watching Peter's acrobatics, eventually joining in, sparring and wrestling and turning their depressing steel walls into a playground. The two of them made a good team and Peter visibly idolized Steve. 

She was sure, given the opportunity, the restless and furious Thor could be tempered by a man like Captain America. 

Peter spoke constantly of escape; he would take the chance someday, and likely get himself killed. 

She knew Loki would eventually find a way out. She could see him working the angles. 

And she saw that together, these imprisoned misfits could take an army. She worried that sometime soon an army would come. 

"Watching the powers again?" Clint asked one day, in the little monitor room with all their prisoners before them. She hadn't found a good way to sound him out, so in the end she'd waited for him to come to her. 

"Just doing a head count," she replied. 

"You're a fool if you can't see it, Natasha."

She smiled, then schooled her features as she faced him. "See what, Clint? That we're surviving? We're on this side. They're on that. We bring them in, we stay free."

"That we're prisoners just like the others. That we're on the wrong side," he said. She looked up at the camera in the room and saw it was disabled. Good boy. 

"We're free to go," she pointed out. 

"We're not. The minute we walk away, we might as well walk into our own shared cell."

"Could be fun," she said with a smile.

"Not that fun," he replied. 

"What are we supposed to do? Risk everything we've built here for a bunch of assholes who are going to scatter the minute we open the doors?"

Clint shook his head. "We can't keep them here. Christ, Parker's barely an adult. Rogers is going to lie down one day and will himself into a coma. Stark and Banner aren't giving us everything, not even half of everything they're capable of."

"And Thor and Loki will get out one day."

He looked at her. "You've thought about this."

"I was waiting for you to."

"You have a plan?"

"Half of one. Stark will have the rest." 

It began with an idea: the idea that those who wished to do good in the world should be free to act, and that those who wished to prevent them were the enemy.

***

[](http://gamef0x.deviantart.com/art/Cover-for-Webcomic-644553405)  
_Bloodyscrew on AO3/Gamef0x on DA has been adapting the fic to a comic! This chapter has four parts:  
[Part One](http://gamef0x.deviantart.com/art/Coulson-s-Eleven-chap-01-part-01-636955396) | [Part Two](http://gamef0x.deviantart.com/art/Coulson-s-Eleven-chap-01-part-02-637164491) | [Part Three](http://gamef0x.deviantart.com/art/Coulson-s-Eleven-chap-01-part-03-638564241) | [Part Four](http://gamef0x.deviantart.com/art/Coulson-s-Eleven-chap-01-part-04-641118623). _


	2. Chapter 2

The first night Peter spent in the cell with him, Steve called a lights-out at ten pm and they got into their respective beds, across from each other in the little white room inside the bigger steel room. Steve was almost asleep when he heard the sound.

It sounded a little like a sob, though more like an animal noise of pain -- not quite crying, perhaps suppressed tears. 

"Peter," he asked in a whisper. "You okay?"

There was a long silence before the answer. "I'm scared."

"You're here with me now. You don't have to be," Steve said, a little louder -- because after all, who was there to be woken by them? "They won't keep us here forever. They can't."

Peter laughed bitterly. "Remind me to tell you about Gitmo tomorrow. They can keep us here as long as they want."

"Why would they do that?" Steve asked. 

"I don't know," Peter said. "They think we're dangerous, I think."

"Well, we are, but not like that."

"Maybe. I don't mind what happens to me. Not much, at least."

"Then what are you scared of?"

"I have friends. I have family. How do I know they're not locked up too because of what I did?" Peter asked. This was a different young man to the one Steve had spent all afternoon getting to know -- that one was brash and lippy and reminded him strongly of Bucky. Now he realized that had all been bravado. And, as in war, bravado often crumbled in the quiet and the dark. 

"They wouldn't do that. Do your parents know who you are? Really, I mean."

"My aunt and uncle raised me. My uncle's dead, my aunt doesn't know. I never told anyone -- do you hear that?" Peter yelled, pushing himself up on his elbows to shout at the ceiling. They knew they were being listened to, being watched. "Nobody knows, you assholes! If you've got them you might as well let them go!" 

"Peter."

Peter subsided angrily. "Even if they're still free, what if they don't know where I've gone? What if SHIELD just disappeared me?"

"Then at least your family is safe, I guess." 

"How can you be so calm about this?"

"Not to belittle your pain, Peter, but nearly everyone I know is dead. Those that aren't will be soon. I lost my world. I haven't even had a chance to see the new one. You grieve, and you adapt."

Peter gave a morose sniffle. "This wasn't supposed to be my life."

"I know, son."

"I'm supposed to be dating Gwen and going to parties and making bad decisions. Not in prison because I wanted to help people." 

"There's nothing we can do about it tonight," Steve reminded him, though he knew it was cold comfort. "Try to sleep. We'll talk more in the morning."

But in the morning, over breakfast slipped through a gap in the door, Peter said "Can we forget about last night? I was just feeling sorry for myself," and Steve, who had some experience of lost young men, nodded and suggested after the meal that they practice fighting. 

***

Tony Stark wasn't the ideal roommate -- he left his clothes in the way, he hogged the bathroom in the morning ("This goatee doesn't craft itself, Scruffy") and his engineering projects were constantly encroaching on Bruce's biological experiments. Aside from those flaws, though, at least Tony was interesting, verging on entertaining. Wind him up and he could talk for hours. He didn't seem to care about the Hulk, which was refreshing. And -- in his own offhanded, self-absorbed way -- he was kind. 

Everything they did, every piece of data sent or received, "every shit and shower we take" as Tony put it, was monitored by SHIELD. Any email they sent was read by censors first. They did have a lot of freedom to speak, at least online: email, message boards, social media were all available to them. It just all also came with a lag, anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on how attentive their censor was being. There were cameras with audio pickups in every room. Bruce found himself reading more and speaking less, because they couldn't listen to the inside of his head.

At least, not yet. He hoped. 

Tony hadn't been quite as accepting of the restriction. He'd told Bruce, in undertones masked by the roar of machines and music, that his AI had found him through back-channels within a month of imprisonment. JARVIS had apparently appropriated a portion of a SHIELD server and partitioned it off, because Tony had a primitive, low-bandwidth line out to the world. Once a week he sent an uncensored, unread-by-others letter to Pepper and received a response; Bruce understood without being told that sending a cry for help would be pointless. All Tony could do was clutch what little privacy he had. And even then, he offered Bruce half his bandwidth. 

"We can split it," Tony had said over dinner, talking in code as they often did, using food as substitute for other objects and people. "I wouldn't resent that. We all need nutrition. I mean aren't you going crazy sometimes?" 

"Honestly?" Bruce said. "It's just me. There's nobody to give it to. Well -- it's not safe. Keep it all. You should." 

Tony had looked at him, dark eyes and curling mouth, slid around the the tiny table and hugged him. Bruce had let him, which he knew Tony counted as progress in some obscure charm offensive. 

"Do you suppose there are other people like us here?" Bruce asked him once, during downtime between experiments. Tony was fiddling with scrap metal and grumbling about how SHIELD's communications embargo meant Stark Industries was only four years ahead of the nearest telecom competition instead of ten, because Tony couldn't play with cellphones. 

" 'Like us' like, scientists?" Tony asked.

"People above and beyond. People who are stuck here because of what they are."

"I'm stuck here because of what I'm not," Tony said, and at Bruce's inquiring look, "Willing to sell. If I'd given the suit and specs to SHIELD, I wouldn't be here."

"So there is something more important to you than Pepper." 

"It's not about the suit. It's about the power that comes with it. And yeah, an arms race that would make the Cold War look like a sandbox fight? More important than Pepper, more important than my freedom. Nobody gets the suit and as long as I'm alive, nobody ever will."

"I get it," Bruce said with a smile. "You're a political prisoner."

"Aren't you?"

"No. Half the time I'm glad I'm in here. But I'm not here protecting an ideology; I'm just more trouble than I'm worth."

"Not to me, Superfly," Tony said with a grin. 

***

Fury was fond of saying that the world had become a dangerous place, but the longer Clint lived with the certainty of his new conviction, the more he doubted the sincerity -- or at least the logic -- of Fury's words. 

Yes, the world was a dangerous place, and yes, these powered people with their robot suits and impermeable green skin and godlike strength were a part of that. In some cases -- certainly often, in Tony Stark's case -- the dangers they fought were enemies they themselves had made. But those psychos were going to turn up against the public sooner or later; powers were just a target for them, a reason to start swinging whatever spiked bat they'd come up with this week. 

The problem was, of course, that if you break a superhero out of prison and he goes around superheroing, he's going to get caught. And then they were back to square one, only with tighter security, and Clint was out of a job. Because while he was a veteran of a few chases and more than a few daring thefts, he could see no way to free their captives without implicating himself and at least one other person. Natasha seemed game for it; he sensed she wanted a change of scene, and she was good at disappearing.

Tony Stark might be able to secure himself, might be able to keep SHIELD from a second try. Bruce Banner had experience in hiding. But a guy like Steve Rogers couldn't just vanish in a crowd -- he didn't know how to do _anything_ necessary to survival in the modern world -- and Peter Parker had family SHIELD could take hostage. As far as Clint knew, they had no way to contact Asgard, no way to send Thor and Loki home. 

"Eventually we'd need to build a zoo anyway," Natasha said to him, sitting next to him at the highest point of the Helicarrier, currently seabound just off the Massachusetts coast. It was far from listening ears and it provided at least the illusion of distance, of being high up above all his problems. 

"How do you figure?" he asked.

"They're not going to stop. The hardcore powers will fight to the death, but now that people know it's possible, more and more powers will start to blip the radar. You watch. We'd have to catch them, and we're going to run out of space. It's either a prison or a zoo."

"SHIELD hasn't managed to detain anyone since Loki."

"Yeah, and that's telling, isn't it?" she asked. "Lizard's free and terrorizing New York. This weird techno-cult led by the Mandarin claims they can reprogram humanity, except all their examples breathe fire and die. Christ knows what Asgard's planning in order to get the crown prince and his brother back."

"They can have 'em."

"War Machine's only free because he belongs to the Department of Defense. The DoD isn't going to send him after targets on American soil without a lot of authorization first. But we have all kinds of new targets on American soil."

"Republicans," Clint murmured. Natasha's lips twitched. 

"There are people out there with more power than they know what to do with and bad ideas to fill the gaps. We need people with power to fight them. End of story."

"No, that's the start of the story. Total escalation is the end of the story. The Cuban Missile Crisis all over again."

"Then why are you doing this, Clint?"

He shrugged. "Maybe if the heroes we got locked up in the hold aren't under the control of anyone but themselves, they'll be decent. They'll remember what it's like not to have any power."

"So the question is, how do we keep them free once we get them out?"

"I'm workin' on it. But I hope you are too, because I'm coming up with big zeros." 

"When Fury brought Stark in, he used leverage. We need leverage," Natasha said. 

"Like what?"

"Public exposure."

Clint snorted. "SHIELD doesn't care what the public thinks, because in ten hours the public's going to be distracted by some new iPhone app or a picture of a cute cat."

"Cynic," Natasha said. "I'm not talking about popularity. I'm talking about pure exposure. If enough people know they exist, and know they're on the side of the angels, then SHIELD is facing the same issue with every single power that they used to just have with Stark. Even SHIELD doesn't have the resources to blackmail six angry powers into submission. What we need is one big, ugly, public fight, with lots of cameras and witnesses and all six of them there to win the day."

"We need a team," Clint said. "Not six individual powers. We need one team." 

"We need a team," Natasha agreed. "And they need somewhere to protect."

"Something to protect from."

"Oh, I imagine if we put the six of them in a major urban center, an enemy will present itself," Natasha said. 

***

Tony had once heard a fellow programmer say that hacking was like building a castle out of greased toothpicks in a darkened room. He was not generally a patient man but he was a man who knew the value of the right tool for the right job, and hacking required patience at the best of times. It was six months, three of them spent with Bruce, before he put the last metaphorical toothpick in place.

It would have taken longer if his father hadn't been instrumental in building the Helicarrier. Once Tony got under the operating system and had a look at the base code, he could see his father's hand in the early, primitive programming. The system had been patched and upgraded a million times since then, but the base code was pure Stark -- and bless dear old Dad, who if nothing else taught Tony to always leave a back door. Inching his way in, little by little, he built his castle of code, and finally he let it go, starting the chain of events that would hopefully lead to their freedom.

"Bruce!" he yelled, and Bruce put his head out of his bedroom. "If you want to masturbate, do it now, I just bought us ten minutes of total privacy."

"What?" Bruce asked, joining him at the monitor. "What'd you do?"

"Finally finished the Iron Worm," Tony said with a grin, pointing at the monitor. Security feeds were popping up on it, overlapping, filling the screen. "Ten minutes of every day during the lunch shift change, our film footage loops and we get complete privacy."

"Total systems access?"

"Well, no," Tony said regretfully. "But I can call up anything on any other screen. Now, let's see who's sharing our server…"

He tapped in a few commands, while a countdown in the corner told them how much time was left. Nine minutes thirty, nine twenty nine…

"Wait, go back," Bruce said, and Tony flipped back a window, to a monitor that showed a large, bare room with a smaller room built inside it. Bruce pointed and Tony made a surprised noise.

"Is that kid standing on the wall?" Tony asked. 

"I heard about him. Spider-man. He vanished a few months ago, just before I...arrived here." 

"Who's his pal?" Tony asked. 

"Can you get sound?"

"Separate system. Clunky. Eventually, maybe. Does the big guy look familiar to you?"

"He looks big."

"Yeah, brawny, but he's not in SHIELD standard-issue. Doesn't look like a guard." 

"You know who he looks like?" Bruce said, studying the man's face. 

"Rogers, S," Tony said. "Or Parker, P. But my money's on Steve Rogers."

"What?" 

Tony pointed at the bottom of the screen. ROGERS, S - PARKER, P was displayed there. 

"He looks like Captain America," Tony said. "From the old newsreels."

"That has to be some kind of -- "

"My father worked on the White Star project," Tony said absently. "Fingers in everything, Dad. He was convinced the chemicals they pumped into Captain America would allow him to survive extreme conditions. He sent teams to the arctic every summer, looking for him."

"You think someone found him?"

Spider-man executed a standing leap from the wall, caught Rogers by his shoulders, and flipped up into a handstand when Rogers braced against the impact. The two men looked at each other -- one looking up, one looking down -- and grinned. 

"I think we found our fellow prisoners," Tony said. 

***

Natasha and Clint were both planners by nature, though they were also improvisers, as plans only lasted so long before they failed. They were not, however, on the same level as Phil Coulson when it came to plans and contingencies. 

The first op should have been simple: there was a neutralizing agent for the cyber-biotech virus they'd implanted in Pepper, and they had to get it to her. But the neutralizer wasn't actually in existence: it had been created, tested, recorded, and then destroyed. To access the formula, let alone actually make the damn thing, they had to get into the armory, through the armory, and into the secure server that stored the biohazard data. 

Natasha made it as far as the door of the biohazard server room, using every ounce of stealth she had, when someone stepped in front of the door, crossed his arms, and cleared his throat.

"Agent Coulson," she said evenly. 

"I don't believe you're authorized to enter this room," he said, his voice the same calm, low tone it always was. She reeled her mind back for a lie, but before she could, he'd turned and swiped his access card through the reader on the wall. The door popped open. 

"One SHIELD agent per week, level seven, rotating basis, inspects the room for evidence of tampering or entry, and to be certain it's secure," he told her, stepping aside. "Fortunately, there are no biometrics down here."

She looked at him.

"Door's on a thirty second timer after the swipe," he told her. "Better get in there. You can get out without any fuss once you're done."

"Do you know why I'm here?"

"Yes," he said.

She nodded, stepping inside; the door closed after her and she fought the urge to check if it was locked. 

It wasn't difficult to get the formula; getting into the server room should have been the hard part. All she had to do was find the file. She copied it out by hand, which took some time, but when she opened the door (it did open; she breathed in relief) he was still standing there. 

"Walk with me," he said, leading her down a side-aisle of the armory. She stayed a half-step behind him; he didn't even seem to care she could kill him from here. 

"Why are you helping us?" she asked, finally. 

He took down a rifle, inspected it, shook his head and put it back. 

"Pepper Potts is a friend," Coulson told her. "You should be glad I didn't smother you in your sleep for what you did to her."

"I had orders. At the time, they seemed rational."

"There's an old saying about only following orders, but I was in the Army; it'd be hypocritical of me to quote it," he said, pulling another off the rack. He seemed to like this one better; he slung it in a case and tucked it over his shoulder. "I've followed orders I shouldn't have before now. All legal, at least in the Army, but not always ethical."

"What changed?"

"Nothing. Well, not nothing," he said, turning to face her. "I didn't like doing it then, but then I didn't have the power to get around them. Now I have that power. So when I get an order I don't like, I don't follow it. Or I follow it, and fix it later." 

"Is that what you're doing?" Natasha said. "Fixing bad orders?"

He nodded soberly. "I want in."

"You'd destroy your career."

"Eh. I was getting bored with this one anyway," he said with a slight smile. "I need to go store this in my quarters. Then I have some business on the mainland to deal with. Why don't you and Clint check out a Quinjet and meet me at 1700? We'll get dinner on the mainland and talk."

***

They put Loki in a cell like his brother's, when they brought him to their clever little prison, but far enough away that they could neither see nor hear each other. Loki didn't mind; as satisfying as it might be to see Thor imprisoned, watching him pace and listening to him whine would have been annoying after a while. 

SHIELD soon found that they could not prevent Loki from sending duplicates of himself to walk freely when he wished, though there were some limits on his liberty. He could not speak, and his hands passed through anything he tried to touch; his doubles, wandering and looking, could cause no damage. He visited Thor once in a while, unable to speak or explain himself, but likewise able to avoid being hugged or being forced to listen to Thor rant about gaining his freedom. It wasn't like they couldn't afford to be patient. They were going to outlive everyone on this pitiful little vessel, and the vessel itself as well. 

Still. Liberty would be nice. 

He learned the halls and rooms of the vessel slowly, mainly concealing himself. There was a joke aboard that he haunted the ship, but he saw no reason to inform the cyclopean master of this degenerate crew that he was learning an escape route, as soon as some idiot could be prevailed upon to aid him. 

"What would you do if you were freed?" a SHIELD agent asked him once.

"Return to Asgard," he lied.

"If you could do that, you would have before we caught you," she said. 

"Do you wish to free me?" he asked. 

"Yes," she said. He gave her a wary look. People didn't usually admit it so boldly.

"What do you require in return?" he asked. 

She smiled. "For you to be a better man than you've been," she replied. 

"A hard bargain."

"Think about it. When your door opens, five other people will be waiting. You can be their friend or their enemy. Either way, I win, so it's not much difference to me."

"Who are you?" he asked, enchanted.

"Natasha Romanoff. Be seeing you, Loki," she replied, and left. 

***

Phil Coulson showed up in Pepper's office with a small box and a big smile. Well, as big as his smiles got. 

"Please tell me you're here to help, because otherwise whatever they put in me can kill me as long as I get one good punch in on your face," she said. 

"I'm here to help," he said. "And I'm sorry. I didn't know they were running that operation. I was otherwise engaged at the time."

"And now?"

He opened the box. A syringe lay inside.

"Now I have the first step towards getting you back your boyfriend," he said. She touched the syringe gingerly. "It'll neutralize the virus in your system."

"Phil."

"Once you inject it, it'll start to flush the virus out. You're going to spend a very unpleasant hour detoxing, but when it's over, you won't be a walking bomb anymore." 

"What did this cost you?" she asked.

"Nothing yet. Once we get him out, I might get to replace him, but that'll be restful. Here's the thing," he said, taking it out of the case. "He's going to be bringing some friends along. We need somewhere quiet, isolated, and secure. Somewhere SHIELD doesn't know about. You need to pick someone up on your way and meet them there. Do you have anywhere like that?"

"I can think of a place," she said, offering her arm. "Shoot me up, Phil." 

***

"So here's the deal," Tony said, during one of their ten minute windows of privacy. Tony referred to it as the Cone Of Silence, because he was a dork. Bruce could judge; took one to know one, after all. "I have a plan, but it has some flaws."

"Don't they all?"

"If I can get into the system itself, I can start a cascade failure. First security will go down, which gets our door open and gets my suit free. It'll come to me; that's part of the programming. Then the lights and radios go out. The wireless internet on this hunk of junk fails. Navigation's the last to go. After that, the engines fail, and because they have no way of notifying the system that they're failing, the backup power to the engines won't kick in. We have a minute to get me suited up and then a minute of free fall to kick free from the Carrier. Then the engines restart, so the whole thing doesn't crash into the ground, but by then I'm airborne, and you're with me."

"I'm gonna need some kind of helmet," Bruce said. "Potentially a sedative."

"You might just want to go green. I can follow you and pick you up when you swap back," Tony said. "There are three problems with the plan."

"Pepper," Bruce said.

"A minute isn't enough time to get to her and block her from whatever remote control has her, and by extension me, on a short leash," Tony agreed. 

"The other two?"

"There's going to be security outside our door. To get into the suit, I need them flattened, but I can't flatten them without getting into the suit. And once we get out, we're fugitives. We'll need resources I'm not equipped to provide right now."

"I'm very resourceful."

"I don't doubt it. We still need an outside man. I can ask Pepper to start looking around for one, but it's going to take time."

They both startled when the overhead speakers, rarely used and very annoying, crackled to life.

"I think I can help you out," a voice said.

"Shit, we're made," Tony said, closing down the monitors. 

"You're not made, Stark," the voice said. "We've been watching. We're on your side."

"Who is we?"

"Tell you later, you haven't got much private time left. The virus in Ms. Potts is already neutralized. She says hi."

Tony gaped at the ceiling.

"Figure out what you need from us. You'll be hearing from me," the voice added.

"Hey, voice from the sky! What do I call you?" Tony demanded. 

There was a staticky chuckle. "Call me Clint. Catch you tomorrow, gentlemen." 

*** 

Tony got two emails to his private account that night -- one from Pepper, informing him of Phil Coulson's visit (Tony didn't think the guy even had a first name; surprise surprise) and the resultant misery as the virus purged itself out. He felt for her; Pepper never took illness well. 

The second email was from the mysterious voice in the ceiling. Clint, whoever he was, wanted to know what Tony needed, and also if he could pick up some buddies on his way out the door. Tony responded to that one first, suggesting an alternate route out for these newfound friends and thanking Mystery Clint for his time and efforts. Maybe it was a setup, but he didn't care; he was ready to go and he didn't think that this was the kind of head game Fury would play. 

He sent off a list of what he needed and when -- hard, secure access to the system, someone to take out the guards outside their door, and preferably a flight suit of some kind for Bruce. Then he sent a second, much shorter message to Pepper. 

_Honey, I'm coming home. Don't be mad I'm late. See you at the place. Bring some stuff._

***

From SHIELD's point of view, what happened when Tony Stark hit the simulated big red button on his computer monitor looked like a kind of apocalypse in miniature. From Tony's point of view, it was a well-played symphony with himself as conductor. 

As soon as their ten-minute Cone of Silence descended for the day, two windows appeared on two separate monitors. On his, Natasha Romanoff's face was visible, and he thought for a second that she'd arranged this, that she was going to lock him in an even tinier cell with no tech and kill Pepper. He filled with rage. It ebbed as soon as she said, "Don't ask, I'm sorry, Clint sent me."

"I'm still not inviting you to my birthday party," he replied. "Not again, anyway. Can you get us into the system itself?"

"Working," she said.

"Time to see if Agent Romanoff is as good as she thinks she is," Tony said, still annoyed that he was being rescued by a woman he desperately wanted to kick in the head. 

"The system is yours, Stark," she said. 

"I've got access," Bruce announced, sounding surprised and delighted. " _Time to see_ if this crazy plan of yours works." 

"I'm impressed and slightly terrified," Tony informed them. "All right, it's showtime."

"Mr. Stark, this is Operative D," a new voice said, no visual. It was female, brisk, and commanding. "Agent Romanoff is en route to your location to bang heads as requested."

"Uh, thank you, Operative D, the suit should be free in about thirty seconds."

"Patching you through to Cell 31-A. Please notify the Captain and blow his doors; 31-A is across from you, so you should probably meet him as fast as possible."

"With pleasure. Also triggering doors T-40 and L-40 to open on mark."

"Thank you, Mr. Stark. I'll be with you until you disembark." 

"Pleasure flying with you, Operative D," Tony said, as Bruce tossed the radio uplink from his monitor to Tony's. 

"Hey, Capsicle, over here," Tony said, and saw both the Captain and his spidery friend startle in surprise. They looked at the radio, and Tony grinned. "Yes, my voice is coming from the radio. No, I don't have time to explain. The door in front of you should open in 3...2...1..."

Tony and Bruce's door blew at the same time the one across the hall did. He also had the distinct pleasure of seeing Natasha Romanoff garotte a guard into unconsciousness. Two were already on the ground and one was spasming from a taser bolt. Tony stepped up to the door. Steve Rogers was standing just inside it, large as life and twice as pretty. 

"Well, soldier?" Tony said, stepping through and allowing Bruce to crowd out after him. Romanoff tossed Bruce a flight jacket and a motorcycle helmet. "Ready to blow this pop stand?"

"What's going on?" Rogers asked. A head appeared in the doorway, upside-down, and Parker dropped to the floor in front of Rogers, defensively. 

"What's going on is -- oh, excuse me," Tony said, as his armor came barrelling down the hallway. Darkness followed it, literally; the lights were failing. Tony stepped into the armor, sighed happily, and lit up the hall with the glow of his repulsors. 

"Prison break," Bruce said. 

"We gotta go," Romanoff announced, activating a handful of glow-sticks and passing them out. "Clint's taking care of business on the bridge. You two, down that hallway, there's a bulkhead you can blast through. Captain, Mr. Parker, if you'd like to follow me…" 

"With pleasure, ma'am," Captain America said, and that was the last Tony heard before he blew a massive hole in the Helicarrier, grabbed Bruce, and dropped into free fall. 

***

"Clint, what's your ETA?" Natasha asked, as they took off running down the dark hallway. When they emerged into a lobby lit by windows, Captain Rogers stepped up out in front of her and started body-checking SHIELD agents out of the way. Parker was bouncing all over the place, knocking down anyone Cap missed. Their chivalry was unnecessary, but sort of charming. 

"Just fired," Clint said in her ear. "Sorry, Hill, the bridge is going to get ugly for a while."

"It's all right, Clint. Just get the packages safely away."

"You want to come with us, last chance."

"You need someone inside. Tell Natasha she owes me like, five beers." 

Natasha laughed and switched channels. "Coulson?" 

"You have ten seconds to hit Asgard country," he replied. 

"Where are you?"

"Handling some equipment issues. I'll meet you at the bay." 

"Which way?" Rogers called.

"Got it," Natasha said hurriedly. "Left, Captain, we have some cargo to collect." 

The doors of Thor and Loki's cells popped open just as they arrived. 

"Oh, oh let me say it, let me say it," Peter said, bounding ahead of Rogers. He held out his hands to the gods. "Come with us if you want to live."

Natasha gave Loki a narrow look.

"Friend, not foe," he said to her.

"Better stay that way," Natasha said. "We're expecting an air battle. We need everyone on side. Come on." 

"Battle, excellent," Thor replied, running along next to them as they headed for the bay. He had his hand out like he was expecting something. Rogers, who was apparently enjoying playing linebacker, almost bowled Clint over as he joined them in their headlong flight.

"One of you, one of you!" Clint yelled, ducking around him. Parker yelped as a hammer came winging its way out of nowhere and smacked into Thor's hand, narrowly missing his head. 

"Where are we going?" Rogers asked. 

"Jet bay. There's a ride waiting for us there," Clint said. "Natasha, what's our twenty on Coulson? I heard Stark blow out."

"I'm not going to make the jet," Coulson said in her ear. She saw Clint flinch. 

"Shit," he answered. "We can hold them for -- "

"No, go on ahead."

"He'll kill you," Natasha said.

"Probably not," Coulson replied. "If he does, Hill will avenge me."

"Oh, probably not?" Natasha asked, as Peter bounded off three SHIELD agents, snatched a gun out of the hands of a fourth, and let Steve and Thor barrel their way through two more on their way to the jet. 

"Everyone in," Clint ordered. "We're going to have to lose some pursuers."

"You go," Thor said. "I'll take rear point."

"Um," Parker began, but Clint shoved him into the jet.

"Well, that was fun!" Rogers said, as he settled in and Clint dove for the pilot's seat. "I really hope you're the good guys because if I'm being kidnapped I'm still going with you anyway."

"Good guys, promise," Natasha said. "Mostly."

"Mostly works for me," Rogers said. 

The jet door was closing when there was a scuffle in the bay beyond; Natasha peered out, saw Coulson, and leaned back just before something came whirling through the gap, embedding itself in the floor.

"The fuck was that?" Clint asked, already lifting them off. Behind them, Thor was hovering, waiting. 

"Is that...?" Parker asked reverently. 

"What IS IT?" Clint demanded. 

Rogers reached down and, with a jerk, pulled it out of the floor.

"It's my shield," he said, wonder in his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bloodyscrew on AO3/Gamef0x on DA has been adapting the fic to a comic! You can find this chapter's comics here:  
> [Part Five: Peter and Steve](http://gamef0x.deviantart.com/art/Coulson-s-Eleven-chap-02-part-01-642893918)


	3. Chapter 3

It took Natasha about ten minutes to shake their tail, piloting her best with Clint on guns, shooting to damage rather than to destroy. Thor did his part too, with gleeful whoops they could hear even from inside. After they shot down or shook off the pursuing jets, she passed control over to Clint and got up, heading for the back. Rogers was calmly inspecting his shield, Parker was looking pale, and Loki was watching them both. He and Rogers both stood when she entered, and Parker struggled up after a second. 

"I'm told you can do magic," she said to Loki. He bowed, took her hand, and kissed it.

"For milady rescuer, anything," he said. 

"Try that again and I'll pull your fingers off," she answered calmly. He looked up, snapped his teeth at her, and grinned. "We need to vanish. We're entering Canadian airspace soon." 

"My pleasure," he replied, and went towards the cockpit, resting both hands on the bulkhead. 

"Wow," Clint announced. "That...works. We just dropped off every radar in existence."

"Not to be the party pooper and thank you very much for springing us, but who are you exactly and why are we going to Canada?" Parker asked. "Also, um, I have this aunt -- "

"Taken care of," Natasha said. 

"That's ominous."

"She's waiting for you." 

"Still not relieved," Parker murmured. 

"She's safe. You'll see her soon," Natasha said, taking a seat. "Believe me, that just became the least of your worries." 

***

They landed in a green field on the edge of a lake so blue it looked unreal. There was a house nearby, all low, elegant lines and glass, and outside a patio heater was going next to a charcoal grill. The smell of roasting food drifted back to them on the wind. 

The Iron Man armor stood to attention on one side of the pit, and on the other side, in a rattan loveseat, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts were curled up together, her head on his shoulder. All of this was lost on Peter, however, who could only see his aunt, standing up from a picnic table and coming forward.

It hit him suddenly, in a way it hadn't since his first night on the carrier with Steve -- the months of imprisonment, the worry for May and his friends, the fear. He ran forward, catching her in his arms and pulling her close, so relieved that she was here and safe. When she finally wriggled free, she patted him on the cheek and smiled.

"You are in a lot of trouble, young man," she said, and Peter beamed. 

"Come back," Tony Stark called from behind them, and he saw the others were already heading for the fire, accepting platters of barbecued ribs and bowls of baked beans from the man Stark had escaped with. "Come eat, the food's ready." 

Peter was coming forward, but he flinched and tried to body-block Aunt May when something landed nearby; it turned out to be the flying guy, who Agent Romanoff said was Thor, a god from another dimension. Flying guy ran forward, yelled "Brother!" and grabbed the totally suave and kind of creepy Loki in a hug. 

"That's sweet," Peter heard Barton say to Romanoff. "I feel all warm inside."

"Not to kill the mood, but Coulson's still on the carrier. So's Hill. What happened to not leaving a man behind?" Romanoff asked, seating herself. 

"Coulson knows how to handle himself. He chose to stay behind," Barton said, and they dropped into whispers Peter couldn't hear. 

"Oh, my brother," Thor was saying, side-hugging Loki as they walked. 

"Do show some discretion, Thor -- "

"We thought you lost to us!" 

"Ow," Loki muttered. Thor dropped him into a seat. "Ow!"

A plate of ribs and beans was thrust into Peter's hands and he was suddenly ravenous; he stuck the plate to one leg and grabbed food with both hands. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had food that was more than lukewarm. 

"I'd like to welcome you all to the hideaway," Stark said, and Peter took a moment to freak out over being at the same campfire as Tony Stark, billionaire playboy. "Property of a shell of a shell of a shell corporation, so we're safe here."

"SHIELD doesn't know about this," Romanoff said.

"That's kind of the point. So for the foreseeable future, or until we get to whatever cunning plan Agent Agent and his henchpeople have cooked up, I'll be your host." 

"Um," Steve said. Everyone looked at him. "This might be outta line but...who are you?"

Stark stared at him.

"Just, you look kinda familiar -- "

"Nobody told him who I am," Stark said, looking around. A few people shook their heads. "Nobody told him? Oh, it's like Christmas," he added, pleased. He turned to Steve and gave him a beer. "Anthony Stark. You knew my father."

"Stark?" Steve asked. "Like Howard Stark."

"Not very, but yes."

"You're Howard's boy?" 

"And you're welcome, now two generations of Starks have saved your spangly ass. So, Romanoff and Barton are the only ones who know everyone here, I think; I'm not talking to Romanoff over a little incident of needle-stabbing that neither I nor Pepper are over, so Barton, whoever you are, you're up." 

Clint set his beer down and stood up. "My name is Clint Barton. Until about four hours ago I was a SHIELD operative codenamed Hawkeye. This is Natasha Romanoff, codenamed Black Widow."

"Apt," Stark put in. Potts elbowed him. 

"You don't have a whole lot of reason to trust us," Barton continued frankly. "Natasha and I have both been on teams that brought you guys in."

"Why are we free now?" Thor asked, sounding more curious than angry. 

"Well, we had what you might call a little come-to-Jesus moment about that," Barton said, and drew a deep breath. "We looked around and thought that the six of you might do more good on the loose than in the slam, especially if SHIELD isn't pulling your strings. Took a lot of risks to get you out. And we do have a plan," he added, nodding at Stark. "But first we need to make some introductions. So. Anthony Stark, also known as Iron Man -- "

"That robot thing!" Steve blurted. 

"It's a prosthesis," Stark replied.

"Who has had perhaps the most illustrious career of any of you, so even though he's got a mouth on him, his experience is useful," Barton continued. "Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, and we have her to thank for bed and board."

"Well, I don't often get to play hostess," Potts said with a smile. Stark looked at her like she hung the moon, Peter thought. 

"This is Dr. Bruce Banner," Barton said, and Peter nearly dropped his food. "He's a foremost expert in Gamma radiation, and sometimes if he gets mad he turns into a rage monster. So don't make him mad."

Peter knew he was staring, but he couldn't help it. Dr. Bruce Banner. Right here. Eating a bowl of beans. 

"Steve Rogers," Barton continued. "We know him as Captain America; one of the most iconic soldiers of the second war. He was 'rescued' from an arctic ice shelf by SHIELD. Captain, you haven't got a lot of experience in the new world, but we're going to count on your tactical training heavily in the coming days."

"However I can help," Steve said. Peter punched his shoulder. Steve was really nice, and super-cool about not being cool at all. 

"Peter Parker," Barton said. Peter ducked his head. "Who has had a short but very public career fighting street crime in New York." 

"I'm so proud of you," May said in his ear. "And you are very grounded."

"Thor and Loki," Barton announced. Thor nodded; Loki looked bored. "They come to us from another realm, known as Asgard. Thor's got a mean swing, and Loki's an asshole."

"I own that," Loki said. "And here I sit, wondering to what end I have been brought here. Do we have any table linens? This food is untidy."

"I'm getting to it," Barton said. "Alone, you could all go back to the way things were -- except for you, asshole," he added to Loki.

"I was minding my own business," Loki said.

"You were robbing a bank," Romanoff put in.

"Well, a man has to live somehow."

"Uh, can I get us back on point?" Stark said. "I'm guessing you have an alternative to us going back to New York and being immediately arrested again." 

"We think that the world needs to see how much it needs heroes," Romanoff said. "And we think that together, you may be stronger than you would be apart. The reason SHIELD had to blackmail Stark into imprisonment is that he had connections. He had a public face. You don't have that, but you could. If you work as a team, if you're visible as a team, you can defend yourselves. Eventually, you won't have to." 

"I'm not sure you quite understand Hulk's vision of a team dynamic," Dr. Banner said. "He doesn't get along with...anyone."

"But you do. And you are valuable without him," Romanoff said. 

"It might be easier on everyone if I disappeared."

"I don't think that's true," Stark said. 

"You've never met Hulk."

"No, but I have some interesting theories I'd like to test. Stick around at least that long."

"Besides," Potts put in, "It's forty miles to the nearest highway."

"What about the two'a you?" Steve asked Romanoff suddenly, as if he'd been considering it for a while. Romanoff and Barton looked at each other. "You burned your bridges with SHIELD, huh?"

"We have resources," Romanoff said. "We're used to working off-grid." 

"Why not put them to use with us? You want to put together a commando team but you won't be on it?" Steve said. 

"I vote to kick Romanoff off," Stark put in.

"Aw, can it why don't you, she helped us get out," Steve retorted. 

"Excuse me?"

"Children," Potts murmured, and both men subsided. "What Tony means to say is that he has trust issues and you shouldn't listen to him. I think this is a good idea -- I think it's the only idea -- and I think for it to work, you two have to be part of it. You know their playbook." 

"Regardless," Romanoff said, "none of this has to be decided tonight. And -- "

"And," Aunt May interrupted, standing up. Peter looked at her, startled. "It's been a very busy day for everyone. I think, for tonight, we should settle in and rest. There's plenty of food in the house; there will be pancakes tomorrow at eight, and I expect you all to be there. You can hash the rest out then." 

Peter watched as, one by one, they all succumbed to her calm, serene, and parental stare. 

He was so glad to have her back.

***

They brought Coulson to him in handcuffs. 

He had a split lip but looked otherwise undamaged, which was probably a good thing. Fury looked at the cuffs, raised an eyebrow, and waited for one of the agents to clue in and take them off. 

"Everyone out," he said. 

"Sir -- "

"Agent Coulson's had his fun, he's not going to kill me. Out," Fury ordered. They filed out hesitantly, and he turned to Coulson, who was adjusting his cuffs fussily. "So. You finally got to throw the shield."

"Couldn't resist," Coulson said, smiling faintly. 

"I gathered. Do you want to explain how all our Level One detainees escaped and why they were helped by SHIELD agents?"

Coulson's eyebrows curled together slightly, defiantly. "They are superheroes, sir."

"And?"

"And?" Coulson responded.

"I want to know what happened to you. What went wrong here."

"Ah," Coulson said. "You want to know what went wrong. How this breakout could have been prevented?"

"Yes."

"Who would bring those people together and not expect it?" Coulson asked. "Look around. The world is falling apart and we're hoarding our best chance at survival. Hiding them in corners because we're afraid of them. That they're the monsters our parents told us about. But we're the ones locking them away. We're the monsters. And they fight monsters."

"Excuse me?"

"There are half a dozen Level One threats that these people could be containing. More efficiently and less expensively than SHIELD, with a far smaller cost of life. We've expended enough energy on powers, when we could be expending it on the bad guys."

"These guys are the bad guys," Fury said. "They make more bad guys."

"Then they should help tidy them up, don't you think?" 

His voice held the same note of disdain and censure it had when he'd declined the job of head powers-hunter. Anyone else wouldn't have had the right to decline, but Fury and Coulson went back. He hadn't liked it then and he didn't like it now, that much was obvious. 

"We have six rogues on the loose. Eight if you count Barton and Romanoff," Fury said. 

"And they were aware you were counting them, Director."

Fury narrowed his eyes.

"Barton and Romanoff aren't powered, but they're exceptional at what they do. They saw the writing on the wall. How long before you came for them? How far out of line could they step before they ended up in a cell?"

"And you?" Fury asked. 

"Twenty years ago, if we'd been hunting powers, my name would have been on that list with theirs. You offered me the job, so maybe it is now. I had an ethical code which said I couldn't permit this to go on any longer. If you want my resignation, you have it. If you want me in a cell, you can have that too."

"Do you know where they went?"

"No, sir."

Fury studied him. Finally, he reached into his desk and took out a set of keys. "You're free to go."

Coulson looked startled. "Excuse me, Director?"

"You're relieved of duty. Fired. You're free to leave. In fact, if you're not off my Helicarrier in an hour, I'll throw you off the edge myself." He tossed the keys to Coulson. "Take Lola. Get the hell out."

"You can't be serious."

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

"I'm a security risk," Coulson pointed out.

"Yeah, that didn't cross my fucking mind. Thing is, down there, you say what we do up here, people just look at you and laugh. And you know if you did speak up -- well, we lost Hawkeye, but he ain't the only sniper I got," Fury said. "So go, keep your mouth shut, and stay out of my way." 

Coulson had long ago perfected the art of the poker face, but he had tells, and Fury knew them all. He looked crushed. Guy might have preferred prison. Who could fathom Phil Coulson. 

"Yes, Director," Coulson said quietly, and left. 

Fury, in the silence of his office, grinned to himself. 

***

Stark's "cabin" on the lake was a doozy, Steve thought. It had twelve bedrooms, two living rooms, three kitchens, untold bathrooms, and an observatory on the roof. He'd retreated to the observatory while the rest of them were settling in, wanting a moment to gather his thoughts. He'd gone straight from prisoner to fugitive to -- soldier again? Captain again? He'd been given back his shield, which had cost someone dearly, he figured, but freedom hadn't really become real to him yet. Now, looking up at the night sky, he was getting there. 

"Nice after the Helicarrier fluorescents, huh?" a voice behind him said. Steve glanced over his shoulder. Stark was leaning against a telescope bigger than he was, arms crossed.

"Just trying to maintain perspective," Steve replied. "Finding that a little difficult at the moment."

"Have you even seen the outside of the carrier since you woke up?"

"Nope."

"When was the last time you had boots on US soil?"

"1942. But I've been doing a lot of reading," Steve offered. "I'm up to the Vietnam War, and Peter's been teaching me about, um, pop culture. I'm never sure when he's pulling my leg..."

"He tell you about iPhones? MTV? Twerking?"

"Twerking?"

"Skip it, you'll be horrified."

"You come up here to tell me about horrible things?"

"No, just taking a break."

"Figured you'd be downstairs with your girl."

"Pep runs an empire. She had a conference call to make. Looks suspicious if she drops off the radar completely." Stark paused, then forged ahead with the thing Steve really didn't want to discuss. "So, elephant on the roof..." Stark gestured expressively between them. "You knew my dad."

"Yes. He was a good man."

"People keep saying that."

"Wasn't he?"

"Not by the time I knew him, but he was effective, which is almost the same thing. I want to make sure you get that I'm not him."

"I'm displaced, not delusional," Steve said, turning to lean against the railing, facing Stark. "I don't know you. Not well, anyway. But if you were up there in a cell with the rest of us, odds are you're a decent person. Peter says you're a hero. That's good enough for me."

Stark gave him a smile. "You really are that good."

"I do my best."

"My old man never shut up about you. I figured half of it was lies."

"Howard was a slick talker but he didn't lie for the sake of a lie. Least, not while I knew him." 

"No, I suppose not." Stark seemed to think this over for a minute. Steve waited, but the silence was starting to get awkward. 

"What is it you do, anyhow? With the, uh, prosthesis," he asked. 

"It started out as just a fun way to punch the bad guys," Stark said. Steve smiled a little. "It's not that anymore. Iron Man became a symbol. I became a diplomat. The fights are what get in the papers, but in the last few years I brokered a lot more peace deals than I broke buildings. I'm a deterrent to some. Mainly I throw really great parties."

"Why did SHIELD lock you up?"

"Stomping on their toes? Worries that I had a little too much clout? Nick Fury pissed off that I keep calling him Patches? Who knows why SHIELD does what it does. What line did they feed you?"

"National security."

"You bought that?" Stark asked.

"I didn't have a lotta options. Then I had Peter to consider. You got kids?" Steve asked.

"Christ, no. I try not to repeat my father's mistakes."

Steve tilted his head. "You think you're a mistake?"

"I think him being a father was one. Look, that's not the point."

"Then what is?" Steve asked. 

Stark looked away, out at the stars. "Ultimately? That I'm not a team player."

"How many teams you been on?"

"Okay. That's a point."

"I got nothing to lose here," Steve said. "I miss having a team. I liked it. You can dilly-dally all you want, but when we sit down to hammer out who stays and who goes, I stay. I'm in, and I'm going to make sure the people who freed us are in, too."

Stark shrugged. "I don't know if we have a choice, to be honest, but I guess this prison's a little airier than the last one."

"So you're in?"

"I don't know. It's not just me I have to consider. Pep's already been kicked around by them once. She has a say in what I do."

Steve turned again, staring hard at the lake to avoid the pinprick tears in his eyes. Lost chances, lost dances. 

"That must be nice," he said, but when he looked back, Stark was gone. 

***

Downstairs, Bruce was making his bed when he became aware someone was watching him. 

"If you're hoping for a show, I charge extra," he called out, and with a sheepish expression, Peter Parker dropped to the ground outside the bedroom he'd picked. The young man leaned in the doorway, overly casual.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to peep."

"Sure you did," Bruce replied. "I can't imagine why, though."

"I, um, so, I'm kind of a nerd," Peter said. 

"Join the club."

"And I've read some of your papers."

Bruce stopped in the middle of making the bed, turning around. "Sorry?"

"I don't wanna say I understood all of all of them but I got most of most of them," Peter continued. "And I just think, um, it's really cool to meet you."

"You're...how old are you, twelve? Why are you reading my papers?"

Peter spread his arms haplessly. "Told you. Nerd." 

"Yeah, well, I'd say treat me as a cautionary tale but it looks like I'm late for that, Spider-man."

"Being fair, I totally didn't do this to myself, but also being fair, it's way more awesome than uncontrollable rage monsters bursting out of me," Peter said. "God, wow, that was really rude. I just. Can I bask in your glow for a while? Because I have very few science heroes and almost all of them are dead, so it's like...you and Reed Richards, and I'm told he's not that sociable." Peter looked shy. "Exalted company for me, you know. You, Captain America, Tony Stark. Couple of gods. Couple of secret agents. I'm just a kid from Queens."

"We're all just kids from somewhere," Bruce said. "Until the day we're more."

"I read about the Hulk, you know," Peter said. "They haven't got nice things to say about him. They never had nice things to say about me, either."

"Difference is, you can read," Bruce murmured. 

"So you're him? Do you control him?"

"Nobody controls him. All I control is when he gets loose," Bruce said. 

"Would you tell me about what happened? I mean, I'm interested in the science, but I was an accident too. I figure, if we know more, we're better prepared. For, you know, whatever."

Bruce smoothed the blanket on the bed. "Maybe tomorrow. I could use some sleep."

"Sure. Me too. Anyway, it's nice to know you, Dr. Banner."

Bruce gave him a thin smile as he left. "You say that now…"

***

"We have much to speak of," Thor said to Loki, when the meal was ended and the others had gone inside under the watchful eye of Allmother May. "Walk with me."

"Promise not to murder me," Loki replied.

"On my soul, I tried to save you before."

"Preserve us from those who try," Loki murmured, but he joined Thor on the path down to the lake. "I'd just as soon not, you know."

"As would I -- I would accept all that has passed and be glad to merely have you back," Thor said. "But."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Your actions were misguided."

"Yes."

"You admit it?" Thor asked, surprised.

"Do you believe you are the only one who can be humbled by our father?" Loki asked. "I spent a long time passing from there to here. I had time to consider matters. I don't claim to be a better man than I was. Just wiser."

"Are they not the same thing?"

Loki looked amused. "You would think so, brother."

"How came you to Earth?"

Loki drew to a stop at the lake, gazing down at the rocks that led to the water. "I fell into the void. I came out in Germany."

Thor gave him a skeptical look. 

"It doesn't matter," Loki said, almost rebelliously. "The bridge is shattered, and you and I on the wrong side of it." 

"Not so wrong."

"I think not, but…" Loki peered at him. "You are destined to rule Asgard, brother," he said, dropping into a familiar mocking tone. "What need do you have of Midgard? Or is it the girl?"

"Jane," Thor corrected. "And she is a learned doctor."

"Where is she in all this, then?"

"I have not seen her since my return. SHIELD captured me first. I was weakened from the fall. Nor do I wish to, not yet. If she does not know where I am, she cannot be held accountable by them for my actions. She is safer wherever she is."

"How noble," Loki said, but his heart wasn't in his sneer. 

"Do not you wish to help us to our permanent freedom?" Thor asked. "What will you gain from it?"

"Not a Midgardian wife such as you would have. Nor eternal service to the side of good. But once free of these SHIELD hounds, I can think of gains to be had from Midgard."

Thor rolled his eyes. "You say that now, but I know you."

"So you believe." Loki sniffed and changed the subject. "What do you think of this armored knight, the Iron Man?"

"He talks a great deal too much for how little he says, but I have heard he is valiant in battle."

"Another Volstagg."

"The stripling talks likewise; perhaps it's a human trait," Thor mused. 

"That one. Cleverer than he appears."

"I can think of no one else so," Thor said, grinning at him. Loki smiled back, though it was hesitant. 

***

Aunt May woke Peter the next morning, earlier than he would have liked and definitely before anyone else seemed to be up. He stumbled after her into the kitchen, sitting down while she began assembling breakfast utensils. 

"Ms. Potts and I went shopping on the way here, since the cabin only had weevily flour and canned potatoes," May said. "I don't think Ms. Potts shops for herself much."

"Why, what'd she buy?"

"She just seemed a little lost once we got out of produce. No damage done; I know what we needed," May said, taking a bag of flour out of the pantry and beginning to pour it into a large bowl. On the stove, a griddle and two frying pans were heating. 

Peter suspected what was coming next. Aunt May liked to be doing things with her hands when they talked about hard things. He got up and went to the fridge, pouring two glasses of orange juice from a pitcher he found there. 

"I keep trying to decide how to talk to you about this...Spider-man thing," she said, reaching around him for the milk. "I'm so glad we get to speak about it face to face."

"Aunt May, I didn't mean to -- "

"Hush," she told him. "Let me get through this, won't you, Peter?"

He nodded apologetically.

"I am very proud of you," she said, not looking at him, concentrating on cracking eggs into another bowl. "I think you should know that. Few men your age are tested in that way -- in the way where honor is put up against desire. Not in such a hard fashion. And I'm proud you chose right, that you chose honor. That you chose to use your abilities for good."

"Well, you know what Uncle Ben used to say," he mumbled. 

"Yes, but there's saying and then there's doing," she said. "So yes. I am proud."

"But."

She smiled, stirring the batter. "But. Doing what you do -- returning now to what you did that got you into this mess -- it's like signing a hitch with the Army, isn't it? It's just such a totally different career path from what I had hoped...from what I thought we had planned together for you. College, a good career -- there's nothing wrong or shameful about what you do. Nothing wrong with being a soldier if that's where your heart and duty lie. It's just different, Peter, and when you choose that path, it takes you away from others."

"I thought I could do both. School and the job and the Spider-man stuff," he said. "I still think I can, Aunt May."

"Do you want to try?" she asked. She stopped stirring. "I won't be ashamed of you, whatever you decide. I just…I've lost my husband, and if I lost you too…when I lost you too…"

"What did they tell you?" he asked quietly. He hadn't had the courage to ask before.

"A man came to the house and told me you were a Level One detainee at SHIELD. A detainee," she said, sounding disgusted. "That there was nothing I could do. I tried, Peter, but nobody would touch SHIELD -- "

"Hey," he said, pulling her into his arms. "It doesn't matter. I couldn't do anything either and I was there. You're here now, that's what counts. You kept safe. I was so worried about what they'd done to you." 

"Nothing," she said. "They didn't do anything, that was almost worse." 

"Someone has to prove to them it won't work," Peter said.

"I know. And I know you have a calling to this," she said into his shoulder. "But…"

 _But I don't want you to_ , he expected. 

"But just don't sign any paperwork until I've read it over," she finished.

Peter laughed and tightened his arms. "I won't. Aunt May...look, would you be happier being proud of what I did, or would you be happier with me safe? I'll stop if you ask."

She squeezed his ribs. "Dear boy. I could never stop you from your calling. We'll work out the rest later."

"What would I do without you?"

"Starve, I imagine," she replied, but she didn't pull away. They stayed there for a while, in the warm, safe kitchen, until someone touched Peter's arms and Aunt May stiffened. Peter lifted his head and saw Tony Stark, in pajamas worth more than his college savings, hugging her from behind.

"Mr. Stark!" she said, elbowing him off with a laugh.

"What? Seemed the thing to do," Stark replied. "Hugging. I'm for it. Besides, someone left me coffee on my nightstand. People have been promoted for less. Call me Tony."

"Go on, you big flirt," she told him. "Peter, help me with the pancakes, I'm going to start on the bacon. Tony, set the table, if you would."

He bowed with a flourish and began taking down plates. Peter whistled, nodded at the dessert plates in his hands, and then nodded at the actual dinner plates in the cupboard. Tony frowned and swapped them out. 

"And how is Ms. Potts this morning?" Aunt May asked. Peter gave her a scandalized look. 

"She's already on calls," Tony said. "She'll be off soon, but she can't stay here long before people start getting suspicious." He looked wistful, like he understood the necessity but didn't much like it. 

"Well, I'm sure they'll have you all back in New York in no time, judging from last night," May said, pouring out the first of the pancakes. "She's a very nice woman. All the gossip magazines say you don't deserve her."

"Nope," Tony agreed cheerfully. "But I got her and I'm not letting go now. Her bad luck." 

A door slammed somewhere nearby, and Steve came into the kitchen, sweaty and wearing a t-shirt about a size too small for him. May gave Peter a look which said she was clearly enjoying that. 

"Hey, squirt," Steve said, patting Peter on the back. "Makin' enough for everyone?"

"Capsicle, where've you been?" Tony called.

"Went for a run," Steve answered.

"At five in the morning?"

"It's seven in the morning, and I get up early." 

Peter glanced at Steve, but he looked okay. Sometimes he had nightmares; Peter didn't know if Steve knew he was aware of them, but he often woke around three in the morning to the sound of Steve working out his demons on the heavy bag (they'd gone through four in the time Peter had been imprisoned with him). 

"Unreal. You smell like a moose," Tony complained. 

"All this open space," Steve said, ignoring him. "I missed that. Nice to stretch my legs again. You should come with me tomorrow, Peter, we'll see if you can keep up."

"Don't get eaten by a bear," May told Peter. "You have a delicate constitution, being eaten by a bear would be very unhealthy." 

"I'll take that under advisement," Peter said. "Seriously, Steve, you reek, go wash. Pancakes'll be out by the time you're done." 

One by one, everyone drifted in, lured by coffee or the smell of bacon frying. Peter looked after the food with May and let Tony hold court with the others, everyone avoiding the subject of teams and crime fighting and prison. 

Tony, as Peter suspected would become habit, broke the ice. 

"I was thinking," he said, taking a mouthful of pancake and suddenly groaning. "May. Come cook for me, whatever you're making I'll double it."

"Sass," she murmured.

"I mean it. No, so I was thinking about Kevlar," he said.

"Bulletproof material," Peter murmured to Steve.

"A replacement for Vibranium!" Steve said excitedly.

"Kinda, but not really."

"I'm thinking about Kevlar," Tony continued. "I'm thinking about helmets."

Thor looked up from his food. "We have helmets," he said. Loki gestured with one hand; briefly, a large gold helm appeared on his head with hilarious horns sticking out of it.

"You have handlebars," Tony said. "And the rest of these punks don't have anything. I'm thinking about communications devices in cowls. Thinking about masks. I'm thinking with horror about matching uniforms. Iron Man doesn't need a paint job."

"So I guess you're in," Steve said.

"I'm thinking about fabrication," Tony continued, blithely ignoring him. 

"How about we hear this plan they've got, first," Dr. Banner said. He'd been quiet up until now, drinking orange juice and making himself a bowl of rice and scrambled eggs in lieu of pancakes. "I suspect it involves more than just going somewhere and punching muggers until we get discovered."

"I've got some scores to settle in New York," Peter heard himself say before he thought about it.

"Get in line," Tony replied. "I need to do some serious dialoguing with the Mandarin."

"Well, this is all very Ocean's Eleven," Ms. Potts said, helping herself to some food. "Thank you, May, this looks delicious."

"Ocean's Eleven?" Thor asked. 

"It's a movie about bank robbery," Peter said, comfortable with his role as pop culture guru to lost-looking heroes. "Danny Ocean gets ten other crooks together and they rob a casino."

"Classic film's better," Tony put in with his mouth full. 

"Stark's Ten," Bruce teased. 

"You do seem to have taken command," May told him. 

"No no no," Tony said. "I ran one company of lunatics, I'm not taking the job back now. Rogers -- "

"I agree with Dr. Banner," Steve said. Everyone looked surprised. "I think whoever joins up, you should lead."

"Why?" Tony asked, baffled.

"Because you don't do teams," Steve replied. 

"He's sneaky," Tony said to Peter. "You didn't warn me he was sly."

"You didn't ask," Peter replied serenely. 

"It's not completely unlike what we have planned," Natasha interrupted. She'd been quiet until now, but she'd sprinkled sugar on her pancakes, rolled them up, and steadily plowed through at least three already. "Your scores are a good place to start; we need to get Lizard off the streets and the Mandarin is dangerous. The idea is to raise visibility -- to show that you're there, that you're not going away. Eventually, there will be a bigger threat. Something public and dangerous. Something to conquer. You'll be symbols then. They won't be able to dislodge you once that happens." 

"Are you so sure it will?" Loki asked. "Not to question the wisdom of Midgardians, but there's an Asgardian proverb about going to the battle if the battle won't come to you."

"Nat's pretty confident," Clint said. 

"Are we speculating about creating a disturbance?" Tony asked. 

"No. But you people...SHIELD wasn't wrong that you attract trouble," Natasha said.

"You're like gunslingers in the old west," Clint added. He made pistols with his hands and shot them around the table. "Everyone wants to challenge the sheriff." 

"Say we believe you," Loki said, leaning back in his chair. "What happens if your former comrades in arms come back for us? I don't mind the peace and quiet of a nice cell, but it does grow tiresome quickly." 

"They can't take all of you down at once," Clint said. "It takes a specialized squad to get just one of you. NYPD got fucking lucky with Peter."

"It took weeks to set up Stark," Natasha added. "It took a lot of manpower to bring down Hulk. They wouldn't even transfer Cap out of his cell because they knew if they got him through the doors, they wouldn't be able to hold him. Thor had a handicap he doesn't anymore." 

"And I was distracted," Loki added pointedly. Natasha gave him a sympathetic smile and a completely unsympathetic shake of her head. 

"If they get one of us, the rest come after him. Or her," Steve said firmly. "Nobody fights alone. We each take a partner."

"Ooh! I call Bruce!" Tony said. 

"I haven't said yes, yet," Bruce replied. 

"Don't make me beg, baby," Tony crooned. Pepper rolled her eyes. 

"I think perhaps that ought to be an order of business," Steve said. "We need to know who's in and who's out. I'm in."

He looked around the table. 

"I'm in," Peter said, glancing at May. She smiled approvingly. 

"And I," Thor boomed. He looked at his brother pointedly.

"Does this position carry a stipend?" Loki asked. "Any sort of benefits?"

"Not being in prison," Dr. Banner offered.

"Well, when you make a compelling offer like that." Loki groaned. "Fine. In. but only until we've cleared up this SHIELD business."

Tony and Steve both looked at Natasha. 

"You don't want us," she said.

"Yes," Steve said. "I do."

"Can't believe I'm saying this, but we need you," Tony added. She looked at Clint. He shrugged.

"Fine. We're in," she said. 

Bruce didn't even wait to be prompted. "I'm in. Otherwise Tony's just going to keep nagging."

"I don't nag. I persuade."

"We do need a better name than Stark's Ten," Clint said. "Aside from the fact that only eight of us are active combat."

"Got an idea?" Tony asked. 

"There was an operation planned," Clint said. "Before the Superhuman Detention plan went in. It was a sort of first draft. It called for SHIELD to take in superheroes and use them in domestic defense."

"The Avengers Initiative," Natasha said. 

"Avengers, huh?" Pepper asked. "I like the sound of that."

"Avengers," Thor said. "Yes. Avenging our imprisonment, if nothing else." 

"Fine," Tony said. "Avengers. In which case, let's talk some more about ways and means. I got a few ideas." 

"He always has a few ideas," Pepper said to Aunt May.

"They usually do," Aunt May replied.


	4. Chapter 4

They spent the morning planning, and most of the afternoon as well. Pepper left for New York before dinner, and Tony felt doubly bereft, having been able to see her for so short a time. He skipped dinner and set about making a lab for himself in one of the unused sections of the cabin, pleased with his forethought at buying a secluded mansion nobody knew about. He'd felt a little Howard Hughes about it at the time, but you just never knew when a secret lair would come in handy.

He should have stocked it better; there were barely any tools or useful raw materials. He raided the maintenance shed for the basics, anyway, and set about building himself a forge. Wouldn't be the first time. 

"Well, this is definitely an improvement," a voice said from the doorway, and Tony looked up from the workbench he was building. The kid, Parker, was standing there watching him, a tray balanced on one hand. "Cap cooked, he said to take some up to you."

"Captain America cooks?" Tony asked, clearing some tools aside so Peter had a place to put the tray down.

"I think he's more used to a campfire than a kitchen table, but he makes a mean bean stew," Peter replied, unveiling the meal. "And you should have seen his face when he discovered the existence of frozen ready-to-bake bread rolls." 

"I can imagine," Tony said, settling himself crosslegged on the table and digging into the stew. "How long were you in with him, up at SHIELD?"

"Couple of months. Pretty sure they put me in his cell because he was the saddest puppy ever." Peter made sad eyes. "He was miserable alone in there. And I've got a snappy stand-up routine."

"You seem like a smartass," Tony agreed. "I know it didn't sound like it but that was a compliment."

Peter hopped up on one of the discarded chairs in the corner and gave a quick jump, hanging from the ceiling by his palms. "What're you doing, anyway?"

"Building a lab."

"Yeah?"

"Gotta keep Bruce on-side somehow, and I get antsy when my home doesn't have somewhere to go and mess things up," Tony said. 

"So I could build a lab too?"

"No, you can ask nicely and say please, and I'll give you a spot in this one, because you need adult supervision," Tony said. 

Peter dropped to the ground deftly. "You'd do that?"

"Sure. Do you really want space to do science in?"

Peter nodded. "I need more web fluid."

"Uh."

"It's a chemical compound, it's not complicated," he added.

"Somehow I assumed the fluid itself was biological," Tony said. "Are you telling me it's artificial? You invented a chemical that does that?"

"Well, mostly. I mean, _I have stood on the shoulders of giants_ , et cetera." 

Tony revised his opinion of Peter Parker from Captain America's Baby Brother to Potentially Interesting Playmate. 

"Okay, in that case, when I'm done here you can help me build a welding rig," Tony said, and Peter looked pleased. 

***

Pepper arrived back in New York through a somewhat circuitous chain of transit, designed to convince SHIELD that she had been somewhere other than a secluded lake retreat in Canada. When she landed on the Stark Tower helipad, she wasn't sure it had worked, because there was a classic Corvette parked next to the landing area. She wasn't sure how someone had gotten a '62 Chevy onto the landing pad but she sensed it might be trouble. 

"Good afternoon, Ms. Potts," JARVIS said as she entered. "Agent Coulson would like a moment of your time. He awaits your convenience in the sunroom."

"I'll bet he does," she replied, passing through the penthouse. "When did he get here?"

"Last night."

"Last night!" 

"He offered to find a hotel nearby, but given the circumstances I offered him a room on the guest floor." 

"Thank you, JARVIS, that was smart," she said, heading for the solarium off the kitchen -- Tony had wanted to just make it a bigger kitchen, but Pepper had insisted on something bright, with living things in it. Tony had gone to SHIELD before he'd even seen it, but she'd stocked it with his favorite flowers anyway.

("I don't have a favorite flower, guys don't have favorite flowers. Do they? Am I missing out on some secret masculine passion?" "Wow are you overthinking this, Tony." "Fine. Orchids. Orchids are expensive, right? I give you orchids. I'm sure I do. JARVIS?" "Indeed, sir.") 

The solarium had roses and sunflowers too, but the purple orchids were the prettiest. Coulson was studying a row of them with the air of a man who has nothing better to do. 

"Phil," she called, and he looked up. "Is that your car on my landing pad?"

"That's Lola," he said with a faint smile.

"Why is she a hundred stories off the ground?" 

"Ever try to find street parking in Manhattan?" he asked, joining her when she sat at a small table near the sunflowers.

"JARVIS, send someone up with tea," she said.

"Of course, Ms. Potts," JARVIS replied. Pepper leaned back and gave Phil a once-over. He looked tired. 

"What brings you to Stark Tower this time?" she asked sympathetically. "Don't tell me Fury's sent you to collect me."

"I've been fired," he said. "Lola was my severance package."

"I've had worse," she said. "Well, good."

"I'm afraid I don't quite see it that way."

"You will when I hire you."

He raised his eyebrows. 

"I'd like you to be my personal head of security," she said. "Sort of an executive bodyguard. You can blow people up if they look threatening." 

"I'm not entirely sure -- "

"Honestly, with your background and access to the biggest anti-espionage budget in the country, are you telling me you wouldn't have fun?" she asked. 

"I do like what I do," he admitted. 

"Then come work for me. I mean, why else did you come here?" she asked. 

He shrugged. "You don't make a lot of friends in this business. I didn't know where the others went, and I didn't have anywhere else to go."

A man arrived with a tea service, set it down, and left quickly. Pepper poured and offered him sugar.

"This is going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship," she said. "And on that note, let me tell you about the Avengers…"

***

Natasha and Clint, who Tony had officially placed in charge of their return to New York (mainly because they would have taken charge anyway) seemed to be waiting for something, and so the newly minted Avengers Initiative settled down to life in the cabin on the lake. They fell into a routine eventually, set by Tony but regulated by Steve, who was less inclined to blow things off because there was urgent science that needed doing.

In the mornings, Peter and Steve got up early and went running, Peter willing to forego the delight of sleeping in for the pleasure of racing Steve through the forest around the cabin, leaping from tree to tree, really stretching his muscles for the first time in months. When they got back they cooked breakfast for the others, and once the morning meal was finished everyone fell in for practice: learning how to be a team, in some cases learning combat as a formal discipline. Steve had been through boot camp, and Clint and Natasha were trained agents; even Tony had some boxing, and Thor and Loki had trained under war-leaders and kings. But Peter had just made things up as he went along, and Bruce had mostly learned how to run. They were studying how to play to each others' strengths and shore up weaknesses. Some of them were better at it than others. 

"I was right," Steve said one day, watching Tony direct Thor and Clint in a tricky airborne maneuver. 

"About what?" Peter asked, lounging in the grass.

"Stark. He told me he wasn't a team player."

"Well, he wasn't wrong."

"No, but he wasn't right, either. He's never been on a team in his life. I looked him up, y'know, and his dad. From after I went down," Steve said, shielding his eyes against the glare of the sun. It was the first time, Peter thought, he'd mentioned it without flinching. "Tony was groomed since birth to run Stark Industries. He never had to be on a team. But he's been leading teams since before his voice broke. He's good at it." 

"I've had worse," Peter agreed. "But then nobody ever picked me before, they just got me when they picked last."

"I know a little about that."

"Well, we sure showed them," Peter said with a dry twist of his mouth. Steve laughed. 

"Aw, life's not so bad. Fresh air, all the space we want, and someday soon we'll be back on top," he said. He was opening his mouth to say something else when Peter turned his head suddenly, face going sharp like a hound on scent.

"Someone's coming," he said, turning towards the dirt road that ran through the treeline, six miles up to the first paved road and thirty past that to the nearest highway. Cap joined him; Peter turned to wave his arms at Tony, who dropped out of the sky with Clint sitting on his shoulders, Thor following. 

"Peter says we've got company," Steve said. "We're not expecting anyone, are we?"

"Nope. Fall in. Clint, get upstairs and make a nest -- find May and get her into the lab, she's safest there," Tony ordered. Clint nodded and took off for the house. Loki, who had been toying with a couple of curious crows and grackles on the balcony, joined them on the grass. Peter couldn't see Natasha, but he guessed she was hanging back with Clint as an ambush, or possibly prepping Bruce to go all berserker. 

When the car emerged from the treeline, two things were immediately evident: the first was that this car wasn't a threat, and the second was that it was flying over the dirt road rather than riding on it. 

Also, the top was down, and jazz was playing. 

"Agent?" Tony asked, dropping his defensive stance in favor of crossing his arms. The car slewed to a halt, tires rotating down to a fixed position as it landed, and a man in a suit climbed out. Peter hung back, just in case. 

The man was maybe in his forties, with a tidy military haircut and a suspiciously forgettable face. He was wearing a pair of Ray-Bans, which he took off as he came around the car.

"Pepper Potts tells me you need an eleven," he said to Tony. 

"And you just decided to swoop up here with your flying car that I'm pretty sure my dad built and apply?" Tony asked.

"Oh, maybe I gave the wrong impression. Pepper Potts tells me you need an eleven, and I'm it, and to tell you that if you disagree, you can talk to her about it," the man said with a faint smile. Faint, but oddly menacing. "Nick Fury fired me. I've been staying at Stark Tower since you escaped the carrier, improving S.I.'s counter-espionage measures. I find myself with some spare time on my hands and a moral obligation not to squander it." 

"I'm sorry, maybe I'm supposed to know this, but who are you?" Peter asked. 

"Former SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson," the man said. "Mr. Parker, it's a pleasure to meet you in person. Thor. Loki," he added, putting a little drawl on the last name. Loki looked intimidated. "Interesting to see you again. And Captain Rogers," he added, turning a much brighter, less terrifying smile on Steve. "I'm a big fan, sir."

Steve gave the man a matinee-idol smile in return. "Well, any friend of Pepper's. Come on up to the house. You're in time for lunch, and a couple of turncoats probably want to say hi."

***

Phil had to say this for Tony Stark: when he hid out, he hid out in style.

Clint and Natasha met them in the kitchen. Bruce Banner was helping a middle-aged woman, whom he recognized from the dossiers as Peter's aunt, lay out platters of vegetables and sandwich fixings. His two former agents looked like they were expecting a whupping from Dad. 

Phil smiled. He'd washed his hands of the Superhuman Detention op, but he hadn't done anything to stop it, so he wasn't the saint they thought he was. And they weren't quite the sinners they assumed he thought they were for joining the op, either. After all, they'd worked out what they were doing was wrong, and here they were, on the other side of the wall by choice rather than coercion. And he'd asked to be left behind. 

He went up to them and rested a hand on Clint's cheek, another on Natasha's.

"It's good to see you safe," he said. "Glad you stuck together." 

"Boss -- "

Phil tsked. "Don't bother. It's over now."

Clint nodded. Natasha looked wary, but her trust issues ran a little deeper than Clint's. He let them go and went to the table, seating himself. Natasha slid into the chair on his left, but Captain Rogers sat down in the chair on his right, which made functioning a little difficult. Captain Steve Rogers had been the central hero of young Phil Coulson's life. 

"You were the one we left behind when we ran," the Captain said. "Weren't you?"

"Yes," Phil said, groping for something to add.

"You're the one who got me my shield," the Captain continued. Phil could see Clint holding back a snicker. He never should have showed them his trading cards. 

"It was a privilege to throw it. Even just the once," he managed. 

"She's great in the air, huh? Flies like a devil. It's all in the wrist." 

"Yeah," Phil replied. He was talking about shield-throwing with Captain America. 

"Agent," Stark said, and nodded at his empty plate. Phil belatedly reached for the bread that was being handed around, accepting a jar of mustard from Natasha when she offered it. Other conversations rose and fell around him as he assembled a sandwich and glared when Natasha dumped some carrots on his plate. 

"So, what news from the city?" Stark asked, around a mouthful of roast beef. "I assume Pep had some reason for sending you here now, unless you're lying and SHIELD sent you to murder us all in our sleep."

"Can he do that?" Parker asked nervously.

"Yes," Natasha and Clint said together. 

"Pepper thinks your new headquarters in New York is ready for occupation," he said. "I'm tasked with the logistics of covertly bringing you back and settling you in. She seems to think your repeated requests for her to manage this are outside her job description as either CEO of your company or your girlfriend." 

"Old habits," Stark said. "Boring stuff used to be her job."

"Now it's apparently mine," Coulson said. 

"We have a headquarters?" Bruce asked. "Like the Batcave?"

"Less drippy," Clint said. "We've been talking with Pepper about it. Stark Tower's almost complete. There's no reason we can't steal a few floors for personal use."

"Isn't it rather public?" Loki asked. 

"What do you know about it?" Stark shot back.

"What don't I know? Large, architecturally doubtful building in the middle of the island, with your name in lights -- not that I disapprove, I like a spot of ostentation, but it seems like we'd be somewhat noticeable there." 

"There is a private elevator," Phil said. "And an extensive, one might almost say unnecessarily large and labyrinthine network of basements and sub-basements. It also has the advantage of being so far into plain sight that SHIELD probably hasn't considered it." 

"Back to the fluorescents," Bruce said softly. 

"For a time."

"So you agree that Natasha and Clint's plan is sound?" Captain Rogers asked him. "You think if we just show up, an opportunity will present itself?"

"I don't think it's quite as simple as that makes it sound, but essentially, yes," Phil replied. "I think in the meantime, you can do a lot of good on a smaller scale. It's time we brought you home, time you started showing SHIELD the mistake it made." 

"We should flip a coin," Parker said to Stark. Phil raised an eyebrow. "Oh we have, uh, we have an ongoing debate about what we should do first because Tony thinks we should go after the Mandarin and Ten Rings -- "

"They're bigger and more of a threat in the long run," Stark put in.

" -- and I think we should take down the Lizard because he's local and I'm an 'impatient child'," Parker finished, putting airquotes around the term. It sounded like an argument they'd been having a lot. 

"Sweetheart, you do have something of a grudge," May Parker put in. 

"Aunt May!"

"Regardless, the first order of business is to get you back safely," Phil said. "You should begin packing. There's a shipment of furniture going into the Tower tomorrow and you'll be in it, so try to travel light."

"So what are you now, our unofficial handler?" Stark asked. Phil steepled his fingers.

"I wouldn't say unofficial," he replied. 

***

The Avengers returned to New York with less elegance or comfort than some of them would have liked, though they had to admit it worked. Loki, enjoying his role as an obstinate truck-driver, delivered a series of large crates to the dock of Stark Industries and then heckled the loaders into carrying them to the cargo elevator, using a simple trick to cloud their minds and make them a little more obedient than they otherwise would have been. Out of a deep-seated sense of sibling vengeance, he opened every other crate before he opened Thor's once they were safely in the basement. 

He was uncertain -- had been from the start -- about throwing in his lot with these mortals, but what was to be done? They had got him free, fed and housed him, and were less obnoxious than most of Thor's friends. They were a trifle too upstanding for his tastes, but he needn't join himself to them forever. Simply long enough to kick himself free of the title of fugitive, and then he could be off to whatever caught his fancy. 

It was amusing to watch the mortals react, at any rate; when he freed Stark, he went first to the crate with his armor inside to inspect it, then immediately ran to greet his mistress when she arrived. The others looked away as they reunited; the Captain seemed equal parts envious and embarrassed. 

"Guess we oughta start setting up housekeeping," the Captain said, ignoring the foreplay taking place on the far side of the room. "May, you all right?"

"I'm fine, thank you, Steve," Allmother May said, dusting down her clothes. "Peter, be helpful and find which box has my clothes in it."

"Got it!" Peter cried. Loki liked Peter; he sensed a kindred mischief-maker if the boy could be properly corrupted. "Okay, lead the way, where do we go now?" 

"We have a mighty task ahead of us, brother," Thor said to Loki, slapping him on the back. "Are you prepared?" 

"I am. Are you?" Loki asked. "Following another into battle rather than leading -- unlike you, Thor."

"Well, he is a hound at bay; besides, we are both wiser than we were," Thor replied. "Stark! Where are our new quarters?"

Loki sighed, picked up his bundle of odds-and-ends he'd collected since arriving at the lake house, and followed his brother along. 

***

Tony was clearly happy to be somewhere with a real workshop, Steve thought. He understood; Howard had been the same, always complaining on the occasions he accompanied the Commandos on raids, happy to return to his armory not because it was safe but so that he could get back to building. 

The morning after their return to Stark Tower -- he hadn't slept well, the nightmares returning with this enclosed, artificially-lit space -- Steve discovered a heap of clothing and machinery on the table in the makeshift kitchen. 

"Ah! Don't touch! Santa came," Tony said, looking cheerful and underslept. He'd been stockpiling designs for months, but Steve didn't think any single human could get all of them built in a night. 

"What did you _do?_ " he asked, inspecting the pile cautiously. 

"Drank a lot of coffee and put my bots through their paces. JARVIS, are you glad papa's home?" Tony asked the ceiling, and a voice echoed down to them.

"Thrilled as ever, sir."

"Who's that?" Steve asked.

"That is my baby," Tony said. "JARVIS. He's an AI. An intelligent computer program."

"Wow," Steve said. 

"Say hello. He's been dying to meet everyone."

Steve looked up, searching for a speaker or a camera (he'd learned about those in SHIELD prison). "Hello, JARVIS. I'm Steve."

"Captain Rogers," the voice replied. It had an English accent, for no reason Steve could fathom. "Welcome to Stark Tower." 

"Thank you, we like it here," he said. Thor walked in, just then, and looked at him like he was weird for talking to the ceiling. "That's Thor."

"Welcome, Thor," JARVIS said. Thor gave a start. 

"Oh man, I'm going to have to explain this over and over again," Tony sighed.

"Are we haunted by a civil ghost?" Thor asked.

"You know what? Yes. Let's run with that," Tony said. 

"Hello, ghost!" Thor bellowed. "We mean you no harm! If you require vengeance upon the living, or know aught of hidden treasure, speak!"

"No, thank you," JARVIS answered. "I am here only to assist you in your efforts."

"Fine. We shall be friends, then," Thor said. 

Tony made them wait until everyone was assembled and caffeinated enough to be functional before he let anyone touch the equipment on the table. When Coulson showed up and began to look impatient, Tony got the hint.

"So. First of all, for Captain America," he said, picking up a blue jacket that looked an awful lot like Steve's old one from the war. "This is motorcycle-grade kevlar, but it's lighter than the really industrial stuff, plus it looks cooler in panels. Note the white star on the front, just in case anyone had any illusions." 

Steve accepted the jacket, then started laughing when he noticed it had a cowl for him. "I like the little wings, Stark."

"I thought you might. Got you some pants, too, but that seemed weird, I'll give them to you later. Also Pep has some red Docs on order for you, should be here soon. Stickers," he added, handing another jacket to Peter. "This is a lot more durable than spandex and your mask won't come off."

"One time," Peter groaned. "It happens one time -- hey!" he interrupted himself, shoving his head into the full-face cowl. "This is really breathable, what is it?"

"Starktex, I invented it before I went inside," Tony replied. "Bruce, brother of my soul, I got you the best thing."

Bruce sighed. "An escape plan?"

"STRETCHY PANTS!" Tony yelled, whipping a pair of what looked like normal slacks off the pile. He grasped one end of the waistband in each hand and extended both arms. The pants stretched with him. Bruce accepted them with what looked to Steve like a mixture of indulgence of Tony's insanity and awe at Tony's generosity. 

"I got like four more pairs. I'd make you a shirt but honestly I think Hulk in a shirt would just look silly," Tony added, as Bruce tested the stretchiness of the pants. "Thor, Loki, I kind of assumed you didn't need armor."

Thor and Loki looked at each other.

"Our courage and valor protects us," Thor said.

"I can do magic," Loki added.

"Okay then, glad I didn't waste time on anything for you. I assume you two came with all the necessary accessories," he added to Natasha, who was sharpening a knife, and Clint, who was eating an apple. "That said, we're off clothing and onto equipment so...Peter, step up, claim your prizes," he said, and offered Peter two silver cuffs.

"You made them!" Peter yelled, grabbing them and slipping them on. Steve looked at them curiously. Peter tilted his hand back, made a sharp little movement, and shot a line of rope thirty feet into the air before it stuck with a wet smack against the wall. Not rope, Steve saw; some kind of fiber, suspended in...some kind of goop. 

Peter shook the webbing off his wrist, did a vertical leap, fired again, and swung in idle circles from the ceiling when the webbing caught. Loki gave him a one-handed push, and he swayed like a metronome. 

"That's going to make things interesting," Steve observed, keeping one eye on Tony, who was handing new, sleek, evil-looking guns to Clint and Natasha. 

"You make what I actually asked you to make?" Natasha asked.

"Yes, I made what you asked me to make," Tony groused, handing her a black case about the size of a large book. When she opened it, silver gleamed from the inside. "Wireless, encrypted-wavelength radios -- well, they will be, I still need to program the encryption. They're keyed to the Iron Man armor, so I'll be running communications. If Iron Man goes down, control jumps to Black Widow. And yes, I built a receiver for Agent Agent, so he can help us out from the ground."

He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking pleased with himself. "Materials for all of us may become a problem. Too many purchases of certain items, SHIELD will ping to who's buying them. But if you guys need tech, come talk to me. We'll make it work. Once communications are up and running, we can start fighting back."

"I have a plan for that," Coulson said from the doorway. Steve glanced up. The man was deceptively harmless-looking -- he was also quiet as a cat, and he looked like he knew things he probably shouldn't. 

"So do I," Tony replied.

"In the field, you might be the leader. In here, I'm your handler."

"Excuse me?"

"I'll be deciding your missions, running cleanup, and keeping your ostentatious metallic...armor out of prison," Coulson said. Steve decided he liked this guy. "Do what I say and nobody will get hurt. Badly, anyway."

Tony looked at Clint and Natasha. They nodded. Steve tapped Tony's shoulder and he glanced up.

"Let's let the man do his job," he said. Coulson looked pleased. Peter, still dangling from the ceiling, dropped to the middle of the table and crouched there. 

"We need to address the Lizard situation first," Coulson said. 

"Yes! Eat it!" Peter cried, pointing at Tony. 

"Peter," Steve said, frowning. Peter ducked his head and crawl-walked over to the edge of the table. 

"I mean, thank you Agent Coulson," he muttered. Steve crossed his arms. "Sorry, Tony."

"Not technically an agent," Coulson said. "I know the Mandarin is the larger threat, but Lizard is much more visible, and he's a major problem in New York. I want you to...debut with a bang. Ten Rings will be our second objective, but we're going to need to be politic. Between strikes, we'll want small teams on patrol, to keep visibility up. Stark, tell me what you're thinking."

"Small teams? I'm thinking we need a flier on each team, at least as much as we can. Our fliers are usually the hitters too, so we need someone agile with them. I have some ideas. They may not be popular."

"Clint and I have always worked together," Natasha said. She looked a little nervous. 

"Then this will be an opportunity to expand your horizons," Coulson answered, not unkindly, Steve thought. "Stark."

"Thor and Clint," Tony said. Natasha glanced at him with narrowed eyes. "Loki and Natasha." 

"You want me to keep him in line," Natasha said.

"He likes you," Tony answered with a shrug. 

"I am right here," Loki pointed out.

"From there it gets a little hairy, because Bruce isn't necessarily a controlled element," Tony said, ignoring him. "I thought you and I could trade off with Peter," he said to Steve. 

"I can go solo," Peter said. 

"I'm sure you can, kid, but if we're throwing someone to the lions alone, it shouldn't be you," Tony said.

"I'm not a kid."

"Said every kid ever." 

"Tony, come on," Peter complained. 

"Look, this isn't just about you. I'm leading this team, and I'm the armorer; I'm going to need time off. Cap needs to reacclimate. Think of it this way: it's taking two of us to keep up with you."

Peter grumbled, but he did seem mollified. 

"And I stay here," Bruce said quietly.

"Unless we need some extra brawn," Tony agreed. "This isn't an edict from on high, if you've got problems -- any of you -- let's talk about it. But I've run numbers and this is the highest likelihood of success." 

"How are you defining success, precisely?" Loki asked. 

"Lowest rate of recapture against highest rate of efficiency, modulated by public reaction," Tony said. "You want the formula, I can show you. Just as an example, Peter's not popular. He needs someone like Cap raising his social capital. This is irrelevant right now anyway. If we are going after Lizard, we do it as a single team." 

"That said, let's begin the briefing," Coulson said, and Steve settled into a chair. When Peter sat next to him he casually rested one hand on the back of Peter's neck, squeezed reassuringly, and let go. 

The idea of taking Peter with him on these two-man patrols was appealing; they knew each other best, and Peter had become his friend without flinching, even as lost as Steve still sometimes felt and knew he acted. Peter wasn't Bucky, wasn't a replacement for Bucky, but he filled a void Bucky had left. 

The others satisfied his longing for his team, for people at his back while he had theirs. He might not have a girl to come home to anymore like Tony did, and the world might have moved on -- he still hadn't properly seen it -- but he had one friend he'd trust with his life and six more he'd trust on a battlefield. There was a mission, there was an enemy to take a swing at, and New York was right outside his door.


	5. Chapter 5

Tony -- probably, realistically, Pepper and Coulson, who had been tasked with preparing the Stark Tower sub-basement -- had tried to make their new home hospitable. It was warm, and there were carpets all over the concrete. Most of the rooms had fabric hangings on the walls to cover the bareness of them (Peter had already pinned up photos on his, Steve saw him doing it). But it was still underground, no big windows like in the cabin, no noise at all. 

He woke in the middle of the night to utter still silence, like there had been in the prison on the carrier, before he'd had Peter's constant daytime chattering and at least his breathing at night. For a second he thought he was there, that everything else had been a dream, and the shivers hit with a sudden sharp jolt he hadn't felt in months. 

He pulled the blankets around him and got up, curling up in front of the hot air vent, but it didn't help. Back before, on the carrier, hitting the heavy bag to work up a sweat had helped, but he'd seen the gym Tony fitted out for them and there wasn't one there. He'd meant to ask about getting one, but it seemed like a ridiculous request, given everything. 

He hadn't needed it at the cabin. Freedom and open windows had been enough to keep it all at bay. 

He was still shivering when he reached the kitchen, despite the blanket wrapped around his shoulders and the warmth in the air. He knocked over a pan while trying to fill it with milk, then spilled the milk and cursed. 

There was a knock on the doorway and he turned, startled; Pepper was standing there in a STARK INDUSTRIES t-shirt and a pair of fuzzy-looking sleep pants. 

"Did I wake you?" he asked. 

"S'fine, I'd be up in an hour or two anyway," she said, yawning. "Sit. I'll do it."

"I was just -- "

"Sit, you look like death," she ordered, and Steve retreated to the kitchen table, watching warily. She tossed down a tea-towel over the spilled milk, then filled two large mugs with what was left and put them in the microwave box on the counter. Bruce had shown him how to work one at the cabin, but he didn't trust it. The results of the microwave were wildly unstable. 

She took down a tin of cocoa while the microwave hummed, adding a generous spoonful to each mug of milk, and stirred while he tried to stop shivering. She offered him one by the handle, so he wrapped his palms around the warm mug and sipped carefully. 

"Tony had some bad nights after the caves," she said, her voice even, not particularly sympathetic or pitying, for which he was grateful. "We weren't together then, but I lived in a suite at the Malibu place. Easier than going home every night. He tried to hide it, but all evidence to the contrary, Tony's not a great liar if he doesn't have time to rehearse. I'd wake up and every light in the building would be on. That was his thing, he couldn't have the lights bright enough. I wasn't ever sure if he was trying to drown out the…" she tapped her chest, "or if it was just really dark, where they kept him. Probably both. Anyway. It got better once I convinced him he could tell me about it. I think maybe he talked to his friend Rhodey about it some, too. It's harder to let someone else see, but it's easier once they do."

Steve sipped his cocoa, the tightness in his chest easing, though his hands still shook. He curled his feet up into his pajamas, toes cold. 

"There's a certain kind of personality who gets involved in this work," she continued. 

"Arrogant?" he suggested. She smiled. 

"Proud. People like Tony -- people like you -- have difficulty asking for help because you're so proud that you can offer it. If you need help, then why are you helping other people? But Iron Man is a suit Tony puts on. They can call you Cap all they want but in the dark, in the cold, he's sitting on a stand with your shield and you're here, Steve. And it's a lot easier with someone else around." 

He nodded, tremors easing a fraction more. 

"It was better after Peter," he offered. "And this morning, with everyone around, I liked that. It's not often. Once we're not living underground…"

"Good. I don't like to think you had to do this much at the cabin."

"Not once. All those windows…" he said wistfully. "It's not even...I don't think it's battle fatigue -- I don't think this is from the war. I think it's from the carrier. I don't like being pent up. I don't like the silence." 

"Do you want to stay with us tonight?" she asked, and Steve blinked at her. "There's a couch in our bedroom. Tony won't care." 

"I couldn't do that." 

"You could move in with Peter again." 

"I might. I might ask, I mean," he said. "Not sure."

"He'd probably like that. He looks up to you, we can all see it." 

"I try to be a good example," Steve said, sipping again. Warmth was beginning to spread, from the hot milk in his stomach through his arms, down to his hands. 

"Are you staying up?" she asked. He nodded. "Mind if I do some work?"

"No, of course not," he said as she opened a little computer, the kind Tony used, and started typing. 

"What did you do, before the war?" she asked, without stopping typing. 

"Whatever work was going. Stocking, loading, sometimes office work when I could get it. Sold flowers for a couple'a weeks once. Tried to get into art school, but I couldn't get a scholarship."

"You paint?"

"Draw. There was this artist when I was a kid, Leyendecker, I don't imagine folks know him now -- "

"Sure. A lot of his stuff's on the internet."

"I am really gonna have to learn more about that," Steve sighed.

"Leyendecker."

"Yeah! He was great. When I was sick Mom'd bring me all these old Saturday Evening Posts to read. I thought, that'd be a good job, drawing covers and ads and stuff, and I could do it when I was sick, even. I used to scrounge rag paper from the printers for drawing. Bucky gave me a sketchbook for my birthday every year." 

"Were you allowed to draw when you were…." she looked up briefly.

"On the carrier? I suppose I could have. Never occurred to me to ask for the stuff for it. Not much to draw, anyway. Not up there."

She stopped again, and after a second she stood up.

"I'll be right back," she said, disappearing down the hall. He nursed his cocoa and sat quietly until she returned, carrying another computer, one of the flat ones, but bigger than hers. She set it down in front of him and tapped the screen with a finger so that it turned white. 

"Here," she said, offering him what looked like a pencil without any lead in it. He hesitantly took it and touched it to the screen. A black dot appeared. 

"Hold the button on the side to erase," she said." When you're done, I'll show you how to save it. No paper required. Never runs out of ink, either."

He tapped again, then tried sweeping the stylus over the screen. A long, arcing black line appeared. He held down the button, concentrating hard, and managed to erase it. He set the cocoa aside and, tongue caught between his teeth, tried drawing simple things -- shapes, lines, cross-hatched shading. 

There were a bunch of little pictures on one side of the screen, and he experimented with them while he worked -- he could change the color of the ink, even the shape of the lines. If he pressed harder, he got a darker line, too. He'd always been fast at picking up new things, and it was sort of pleasing to be able to learn something from the inside out, especially something as swell as this. 

When he looked up again, the dregs of his cocoa were cold, Pepper was gone, and Thor was sitting in her place, watching him. Hours had passed. Steve flexed his fingers. 

"These artificers of Midgard make amazing things," Thor said solemnly. "Draw my picture." 

"I'm not…"

"I demand it. I am passionate about portraits," Thor ordered. 

"Uh, okay," Steve said, but just to be contrary he drew him with a ridiculously square jaw, flowing hair that reached to his waist, and that silly helmet only with the wings three times the size they should be. 

Thor's roars of laughter woke the rest of the Avengers. 

***

Taking down Lizard -- something SHIELD had failed to do, something Peter had failed to do because of SHIELD -- turned out to be almost laughably easy. 

In cosmic terms he was more of a nuisance than anything else -- certainly when compared with the Ten Rings, which was a multinational terrorist corporation, or even with Loki, who had managed to level a small New Mexico town. ("I _said_ I was _sorry_.")

But he was dangerous, and he had killed. New Yorkers didn't go out after dark, because that was when he hit. Sometimes he seemed to hunt people for sport. He robbed chemical warehouses, and there had already been one outbreak of disease traced back to him -- quickly contained by the CDC, who had a permanent office in New York that was fast swelling with the best scientists SHIELD could provide. Still, people had died. 

"He's not my fault, you know, I mean that isn't my E! True Hollywood Story," Peter had said in the briefing. "I didn't cause him, whether SHIELD thinks I did or not. It's science run amok. I knew him, I tried to stop him, but if I was out of the equation he'd still have got there sooner or later. He's the reason I ended up in SHIELDcatraz with Steve, so I want to take him off the streets." 

Tony thought the kid was protesting a bit much, but he understood. He hadn't caused Vanko's breakdown either, except that his family had, the blood industry he'd used to work for -- and he had been flippant and arrogant with Vanko when they spoke, which probably hadn't helped matters. A degree of guilt was usually associated with the bad guys whether you could actually claim it or not. 

The point was, SHIELD hadn't been able to find Lizard, but SHIELD no longer had a combination of Peter's acute spider-sense, Tony's technical acumen, and Captain America's startling skill as a hunter.

"I thought you were a city boy," Tony said on their third night searching, following as Steve crept noiselessly through a section of drainage sewer.

"I was born and raised in Brooklyn," Steve said. "Closest I ever got to hunting was chasing stray cats."

"And?"

"And then I went to war," Steve answered simply.

There was a cough over their comm lines, and Peter's voice crackled down to them. "Found his nest."

"Is he there?" Tony asked.

"Yes," Loki replied. "And he has minions."

"Minions?" Steve inquired.

"Lizardites," Peter supplied. "Maybe a dozen."

"That's fine," Tony said. "We stick with the plan. How far ahead of us are you?"

"Maybe fifty, seventy-five feet."

"Thor, Widow, you in position?"

"Holding," Natasha replied tersely.

"Hawkeye?"

"I've got eyes in the sky. If SHIELD shows up, I'm ready."

"Bruce?"

"I'm nearby."

"Get ready to get angry if you have to," Tony said. "A dozen lizard people running amok in Manhattan was not on the docket for tonight. Cap, you want to run this show?"

"On my mark," Steve said. "Three, two, one, and mark."

The fight was spectacular, if Tony said so himself, and he did. Cap and Loki went in after the Lizardites (he couldn't break Peter of calling them that, and stopped trying) while Peter and Tony flushed Lizard up towards the streets. Peter, who did have extra motivation, was like a dog on the hunt, ruthless and quick. Nevertheless, Lizard knew the sewers better than they did and made it up to the street ahead of them, which would have been a pretty decent escape if Thor hadn't been waiting for him. Natasha was there in a flash, and they played with him long enough for Tony and Peter to arrive and help finally pin him down. Loki and Steve sounded like they were having fun with the Lizardites. 

By daybreak, fourteen lizard-people had been deposited in various police cars in the area, and the Lizard himself was left dangling from a streetlight outside the local precinct, webbed tightly and with adamantium-alloy handcuffs stamped STARK INDUSTRIES on his wrists. 

An image had also gone out on the internet, quickly the topic of hot debate: it showed two giant, musclebound men holding the Lizard's arms. One had a blue jacket with a white star on it and some kind of cowl, while the other was in what most of the internet agreed looked like well-made cosplay armor. A redheaded woman sat on the monster's shoulders, her thighs around his throat, and kept his jaw clamped shut with both arms. Spider-man, or someone in a similar costume, could be seen binding him up with webbing. 

Iron Man was waving in the background. 

THE RETURN OF IRON MAN? the newspaper headlines read, speculating that Tony Stark's self-imposed "hiatus" from superheroing had come to an end. Spider-man got a byline as a "former suspected terrorist", which made Peter somewhat despondent over brunch. Thor, Steve, and Natasha were listed as "concerned citizens, unidentified."

SHIELD showed up at the precinct-house where Lizard had very publicly been displayed, and by noon had spirited him away somewhere. Coulson came down to the sub-basement to inform them that Operative D, their woman on the inside, had contacted him to assure all of them that Lizard was in Thor's old room on the carrier. He was also being carefully examined for forensic evidence that might lead them to the Avengers.

"I hope they have fun with that," Tony said, inclined to amusement by the fact that they had _totally kicked ass_. "Did she say if Fury's blown a vein yet?"

"I'm sure he's working on it," Coulson replied. "This was good work. And now we can set our sights on the Mandarin with a clear slate. Stark, Natasha -- I want all the intel we can get. While we work that angle, we'll be starting night patrols." 

"Cap and Peter, you're up," Tony said, pointing at them. "Peter needs the exposure, I'm tired of people calling him a terrorist. Can we put a flag on you?" he asked Peter. "Can we maybe give you some kind of rebrand? Just consider this: Captain America and Free Spirit."

"I got the webs and the stick-to-walls thing, I think I'm kind of locked into the Spider-schtick," Peter said.

"Tony, Peter's a grown man and he's perfectly capable of choosing what costume he wants to dress up in," May said, dropping a kiss on Peter's head as he passed. "By the way, Pepper called down. She says SHIELD is searching Stark Industries factories upstate."

"Let 'em. I hope she's got legal on the line so we can sue for lost productivity when they find squat," Tony replied.

"That was oddly similar to what she said," May assured him. 

***

Patrolling was the most fun Peter'd had in ages. It was really always what he'd enjoyed most about the gig; it was simple, and even if they occasionally had to play hide-and-seek with SHIELD, it was satisfying. After the first week, usually two teams a night went out, splitting up the city into quadrants according to some equation Steve and Tony had cooked up between them, based on an intent study of crime patterns on Google. Once they'd gotten Steve onto the internet, prying him off was actually pretty hard.

"If we'd had GPS during the war, my life would have been so much easier," he groaned, studying a nightly crime report in preparation for their evening patrol. 

"Goes both ways, though," Tony pointed out, from where he was diagramming satellite photographs of a suspected Ten Rings compound. "If you can find you, anyone else with network access can find you too."

"Besides, for GPS you have to have satellites in space," Bruce put in. 

"So?" Steve asked.

"So to get satellites in space, we needed German scientists," Tony said. Steve frowned. "Google Operation Paperclip sometime."

"Werner von Braun went straight from building Nazi missiles to building American rockets. The history of cellular telecom is the history of the machinery of war," Bruce finished. "You know who the biggest name in telecom is right now?"

"Stark Industries."

"Who, ten years ago, was the biggest name in arms manufacture."

Steve looked down at his phone, dismayed. Tony grinned.

"Don't let it get you down, Cap. At least it wasn't in vain, right? And if you hadn't won the war -- " 

"I didn't, the Allies did," Steve corrected automatically. 

" -- then we wouldn't have been able to get the scientists on-side, and human progress might have had to wait a few decades for in-pocket global mapping."

"Augh, science!" Clint yelled as he passed through on his way to the gym. 

"Technically history!" Tony yelled back. 

"You Midgardians," Thor said from a nearby chair. "Seventy years and you call it history."

"I'm gettin' out of here," Steve declared, pocketing his phone as he stood up. "Peter, you coming?" 

"Yeah, just gotta get my shooters on," Peter said. 

"Loki and Tasha, report for patrol," Tony yelled. 

"Hey, can we hit up that all-night slice shack again afterward? I'm craving some foldable pizza." Peter asked. 

"Pizza," Steve sniffed, as if it was some kind of exotic delicacy. "Maybe, we'll see." 

***

Loki and Natasha, both accomplished liars and practiced in secrecy, tended to seek out targets rather than wandering in search of them. They'd broken up a small illegal gambling ring, knocked down an entire building of drug dealers (not literally), and almost been caught by SHIELD when the NYPD went after a forced-prostitution racket at the same time they did. 

Still, one never knew what one would find, and when they heard the commotion coming from the alleyway, naturally they investigated. With prejudice. 

Loki preferred to hang back and sow chaos from afar while Natasha dove in. He took no small amount of pleasure in watching her work. 

"Oh, bad form," he cried, as one of the three burly men she was battling went after her from behind. She flipped backwards and choked him with her knees, stabbing another in the thigh as the sneak-attacker went down. The third one tried to flee, and Loki neatly clotheslined him with a thick stick he'd taken to carrying. 

Six zipties later, they were piled at the mouth of the alley for the police (or possibly scavengers even worse than themselves; Loki wasn't picky, and he knew Natasha wasn't). 

The woman they'd been attacking was crouched in a corner, wisely keeping out of the way. As Natasha straightened from dumping the third body, the woman called, "Hello?"

"Are you well, madam?" Loki answered. "Should we summon an ambulance van?"

"No, I -- I think I'm okay," she said, her voice wavering slightly as she approached. She reached into her purse for something, and Natasha immediately went on the defensive. The woman drew a phone from the bag, hand shaking a little.

"You -- you're some of them, aren't you?" she asked. "The Avengers."

Loki loved a good sweeping bow, and he used it very well, he felt. "Indeed. Loki of Asgard and the Black Widow, at your service."

"Oh, my god," she said.

"Yes?" he replied, grinning.

"You're Avengers! Everyone says you aren't real! This is so cool!"

Loki glanced at Natasha. This had not happened before. Generally, the Midgardians took to their heels.

"If you don't need us, we'll just…" Natasha jerked her thumb at the street, a clear gesture that they should be going. 

"No, please! Wait!" the woman said. "Um, this is -- I mean, can I have a picture with you? My friends will _so never believe_ I got rescued by actual Avengers."

Loki was prepared to argue the point, because it seemed like fun but he doubted Natasha would agree. She surprised him; she nodded with a very sincere-looking smile and moved a little to one side as the woman positioned herself between them. She held up her phone, snapped off a photo of all three of them, didn't notice Loki giving her curly-helmet-horns behind her head, and turned to hug Natasha.

He felt rather put out by that.

"Thank you for saving me and being cool, can I Instagram this?"

"Absolutely," Natasha said firmly. "You should tweet it too."

"Thank you guys so much. We love you," the woman said, and walked away with her nose buried in her phone. 

"That was strange, yes?" Loki asked. He felt oddly satisfied inside. 

"That was patrols starting to pay off," Natasha answered. She caught his look and grinned. "Feels good, huh?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Being liked. Being admired for what you do."

"I don't require the affection of Midgardians. I was King of Asgard, you know. For five minutes or so, but still," he said, levitating himself upwards as Natasha leapt to a fire escape and began scaling the building. 

"Well, I don't _need_ it," she said. "But it's nice all the same."

"Hey, spy kids," Tony's voice came over the comm. "Someone just instagrammed a selfie with you."

"She was nice," Loki replied.

"You better scram, if I've seen it then SHIELD's seen it and the picture is on her map so they know where you've been."

"Already on it," Natasha grunted, reaching the roof. She took off running and Loki had to land, gather up his cloak, and give chase just in order to keep her in sight. 

When they were suitably distant from anywhere SHIELD was likely to look, Natasha settled down on the edge of a roof with a pair of binoculars to watch SHIELD quinjets circle the area, and Loki dropped next to her. 

"So how did you get from king of Asgard to bank robber in Berlin?" she asked, without looking away from the search.

"The vagaries of fortune."

She glanced at him sardonically and then went back to the binoculars.

"Thor told me he had to break the rainbow bridge to stop you. You fell into a void," she said. Loki sighed. 

"Well, we all make mistakes on our first foray into politics," he said. 

"So what, this void just happened to suck you down to Midgard?"

"Not precisely."

"You know, I'm respecting you here and just asking you. I could have spent a week manipulating you into spilling it."

"Yes, but a week is a long time, and you don't like me enough to spend that much time focused on me," he pointed out.

"I like you just fine. I'm curious, that's all."

Loki leaned back, looking up at the pathetically distant stars in this pathetic little realm. 

"When I fell into the void, I drifted," he said. "For a long while. I was conscious for some of it. Eventually I was discovered."

"By?"

"A somewhat ungentlemanly being," Loki said. "It is not in his nature to play caretaker, but my worth is more evident to some other forms of sight than weak Midgardian vision. He recovered me from the void. He offered me a part in a glorious conquest."

"I've learned to mistrust the word glorious," she said.

"I learned that long ago on Asgard. Glorious generally means a lot of mud and blood in the near future." 

She smiled, still watching the quinjets, now fruitlessly moving off in the other direction. "So?"

"He offered me wealth, too. The imperial throne of Midgard, should I lead his army in battle against it."

Natasha lowered the binoculars slowly. "He offered you rule of Earth if you could take it."

"Indeed."

"What did he want with Earth?"

"I didn't inquire. There are some people one just doesn't question overmuch," Loki replied. 

"What did you tell him?"

"Bearing in mind that my title was once Prince of Lies, what makes you think I think you'll believe me?"

She turned to him, pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged at the edge of the roof. "I think you resented Thor because he was bigger and louder and stronger than you, in any way that Asgard values, and you resented your father for not being your father, and you did something immature. I think you got spanked for it, possibly out of proportion to the crime, but maybe not; I bet they wouldn't think so in New Mexico. You act with good intentions, Loki, you just sometimes fuck it up with your ego, and when you do you usually try to blame it on other people. You say they knew you were a liar and thus shouldn't have trusted you. You're like Tony; you forget that smarter than other people doesn't mean wiser than other people. A frontal assault isn't your style, but a long game isn't either. You don't have the patience for it." 

Loki swallowed. Natasha had a way of seeming unarmed right before she stabbed you in the face. 

"I told him no," he said. "He told me I could suffer with the rest of you, then, and consigned me to Midgard. Berlin was just where I happened to fall."

"Why?" she asked, tilting her head.

"Must you twist the knife?"

"From my point of view it's just gathering intel."

Loki sighed and looked out over the rooftops of Manhattan, the new home he wasn't truly permitted to see yet. 

"I once sat on the throne of Asgard, however cravenly or briefly. I am a prince of two realms, neither of which will have me, both of which I reject out of hand -- but I once ruled the greatest of them. What do I care to rule a little backwater like Midgard? I know enough of Midgardians not to want that headache. More trouble than it was worth, in the end." 

"What about this warlord? Is he still coming?"

"I doubt it. If he could get here from there, he wouldn't have needed me." 

"He needs a gateway."

"Yes."

Natasha stood up, dusting herself off. "We should head home. I know a place we can get some pierogies, we'll stop on the way." 

***

"Here's what I want to know," Peter said, later that night over crispy, greasy slices at the all-night pizzeria. The two of them had shed their masks and turned their uniform jackets inside-out, a thoughtful addition of Tony's in case they needed to go incog quickly. They really shouldn't be out late off patrol, but the pizza was an indulgence in a life of few luxuries at the moment. "SHIELD knows who I am. They did mug shots. I know, because I was there. They have hours of footage of all of us, probably ID photos for Clint and Natasha. So why don't they use them?"

"How do you mean?" Steve asked.

"Well, like, why am I Spider-man, suspected terrorist? Why am I not Peter Parker, confirmed traitor to the nation and wanted criminal?" 

"Bad PR for them."

"SHIELD couldn't mock-up some bombing to blame me for?"

"If they do that, you could step out and say what happened."

"They could get to me before I managed."

"Well, playing the odds. This is what as known as a detente," Steve said, around a mouthful of food. "Maybe our Operative D is interfering. She must be pretty high up to get into Coulson's faith."

"Maybe," Peter said dubiously. "Makes me nervous, though." 

"I just think they probably find no point to it. If you're walking around bare-face in daylight, can't one of their face-recognizing traffic cameras get you anyhow? I thought that was why we couldn't go out." Steve chewed thoughtfully. "Future's a little creepy, I gotta say."

"SHIELD doesn't seem the type to hold back."

"Well, let's be grateful for small favors. Come on, we should get home," Steve said, just as his comm beeped. "Go, Iron Man."

"On your way back?"

"Sure."

"You should hustle. Wait till you see what Natasha and Loki did."

"I fear to speculate."

"Nobody died. Come on home." 

"Acknowledged. Eat up," Steve said, as Peter finished his slice. "Mother hen's calling us back to the roost." 

***

 _Avengers and me. Hot one is super-nice, cute one has a sense of humor,_ the Instagram message read. She had also tweeted, facebooked, and tumblr'd it. They had a lot of reblogs, whatever those were. It wasn't the first photo of the Avengers at work, but it was the first clear, crisp image from up close, with an eyewitness account to match. 

"I think I'm the hot one," Natasha said, at the summit the next morning over The Instadent, as Tony called it. 

"Well, you don't have a sense of humor, so probably," Clint replied. 

"It is rather refreshing to be appreciated for it," Loki put in. 

"I appreciate your sense of humor," Thor said, frowning.

"You really don't, but it's nice you try," Loki replied. 

"How many people have seen it?" Steve asked.

"Calculation is difficult," JARVIS said. "Somewhere between thirty thousand and fifty thousand, roughly. The photograph was posted during off-peak hours; we expect one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand by noon."

"Honestly, I think it's fantastic," Tony said. "You can't buy publicity like a hot redhead and a funny norse god posing for the camera after rescuing a pretty girl from thugs."

"Later, I'm going to deconstruct what you just said and explain to you all the things that are wrong with it," Pepper told him. "But you're not wrong about PR. And now that one of them has done it, you can expect more requests."

"I'm so glad we got you braces when you were thirteen," May told Peter. "You have a lovely smile, Peter, don't forget to smile."

"Oh, please tell me there are photos," Clint said. 

"Aunt May, I wear a full-face mask," Peter reminded her.

"I know that," she said. "Roll it up to your nose, give people a look at those thousand-dollar teeth." 

"Did you know we have a Yelp page?" Steve asked suddenly. He held up his phone. "The photo's already been added to a gallery that is, I have to say, kinda focused on our behinds."

"Wow, that is a lot of butts," Bruce said.

"Look!" Thor said delightedly. "Mine is described as the most glorious!"

"What's our score?" Tony asked. 

"Four stars. We got a few one-star reviews from people who are clearly criminals. Also some of the four-stars are indecent discussions of Natasha's...feminine attributes."

"JARVIS, find them, wipe them," Tony said. 

"Already done," JARVIS replied smugly. 

"I'm glad you're all here," Coulson said as he entered. Steve quickly cleared his phone, while Tony wiped the image from the big screen. "We have new, solid intel on the Ten Rings. I think we're finally ready to move."

"Do you think he's seen it?" Clint whispered to Thor.

"Nay, he would have attended us sooner," Thor whispered back. 

"Also, Natasha, I'm having the description of you as _super nice_ framed for you, since I don't think anyone has ever called you that before," Coulson finished. 

Tony leaned across to Clint. "I think he knows," he said in a stage-whisper.


	6. Chapter 6

Coulson's intel was sound. It led the Avengers to a beach house in Miami, where all eight of them dropped in through the roof and scared the bejesus out of an actor named Trevor who had apparently been hired to front the terror campaign. 

"Scoundrel!" Thor shouted, when Trevor tried to explain himself. "Deceiver! Tell us who sponsors your campaign of misinformation or it shall go very hard for you!" 

"Nice to see him trying that with someone else," Loki remarked. 

"Can we kill this douche?" Tony asked Cap.

"No," Cap said.

"What if we do it while you aren't looking?" 

Trevor managed to point them back, somewhat indirectly and incoherently, to Advanced Idea Mechanics, a legitimate tech corporation headed by a man named Aldrich Killian. Pepper, who apparently knew Killian from a pitch he'd tried to make for Stark Industries investments in his products, said he was "creepy" in a way that made Tony froth at the brain. 

Bruce got his first real call-up with the Avengers when they took down AIM: Hulk battered his way into their HQ from the outside, along with Thor and Cap, while Natasha, Clint, and Loki snuck inside to liberate his locked servers and all the secret bookkeeping and illegal human testing they contained. Peter toyed with his security forces, mainly; Tony went after Killian. 

"I've been told," he said, as he rocketed into the sky with Killian in his arms, "that I have some anger issues to work out. I'm trying to be a sensitive, enlightened man here and trust that Pepper is fierce and confident enough to shut you down without my help. I'm sure she is. But if you ever go near her again or try to touch her…"

He let go before he cut thrust. Killian drifted upwards in the air for a few seconds, hung in place for what seemed like a long time as gravity slowly reasserted its hold, and then started to fall. Tony caught him before he got very far, but not before he'd pissed himself. 

"Well, you get the picture," Tony finished. "Hawkeye, did you get all that on camera?"

"Clear as day," Clint replied from Lola's driver's seat. "But if you want to do another few takes, like, just in case we need more footage…"

"Nope. Cut it, print it, put it on youtube," Tony said, just as news choppers began to circle the steaming crater that had once been AIM. "Better grab the others and scoot. I'll handle Hulk." 

AIM got the Avengers their first real, meaningful national news coverage. All of a sudden they went from dubious, possibly urban-legendy nightstalkers to bona fide Mysterious Heroes or possibly Lethal Threats To National Security, depending on which network news you watched. MSNBC threw together a Who Are The Avengers special in record time, complete with theme music lifted directly from one of Steve's old propaganda films. 

"We all know Anthony Stark," the host said, as the Avengers settled in with popcorn to watch. "Son of industrialist Howard Stark, Anthony "Tony" Stark had what some call a spiritual conversion during a period of captivity several years previous."

"Did you find God?" Steve teased.

"I found Oh God What Have I Done, which is similar," Tony replied. 

"As the armored Iron Man, he spent the following years defending the nation's interests and brokering diplomatic treaties with a number of nations until his mysterious hiatus a year ago. Now he appears to have returned -- but who are his new companions?" the host asked. 

"I like that they immediately knew I was leader," Tony said. "I feel like I telegraph authority."

"You telegraph somethin'," Steve answered. 

"We'll be discussing Spider-man, an alleged terrorist -- "

"God _dammit_ ," Peter said.

"Language, Peter." 

" -- later in the program. For now, we have new questions. Who are these men? Who is the mysterious woman fighting among them? Where has Stark found his newly minted Captain America -- and is Tony Stark qualified to appoint this man to represent the nation, or replace a fallen hero of the second world war? How has he managed to contain and control the Hulk, until recently viewed as one of the most destructive creatures on the planet? We'll speak to psychologists, historians, and ordinary people who have survived encounters with the Avengers, up next." 

"I'm the bait, huh?" Peter asked, as JARVIS muted the commercials. "I'm the one they put at the end so everyone will watch all the way through."

"I'm worried about the word 'psychologists'," Clint said.

"You generally are," Coulson replied. 

"Stark Legal is watching this," Pepper said, taking a handful of popcorn from the bowl Tony was holding. "First hint of defamation, we'll be on it." 

"Of Tony, or of any of us?" Bruce asked, looking curious.

"I can't sue on your behalf without you being compelled to court," Pepper said. "I can sue in Tony's name because it's connected to Stark Industries." 

"SHIELD will turn up the heat after this," Coulson remarked. "Now we're just making them look like incompetents. You were so visible that newscopters found you and they still couldn't put a hand on you."

"They got close, with Bruce," Tony reminded him. That had been touch-and-go; Bruce, dazed and weak from the change back, had been ten feet from a SHIELD agent before Tony scooped him up and bolted with him into the sky. 

"Close only counts with hand grenades," Coulson said. They all looked at him. "Fury's idea of a joke." Nobody seemed enlightened. "Because it was a grenade…?" he offered, tapping just above his left eye. 

"Oh!" Tony said. "Okay, that's a million times funnier with context. Next time I see him I'm going to tell him to keep an eye out for grenades." 

"Shh, it's back on," Peter said, mechanically devouring his own private bag of microwave popcorn. 

From their point of view, the documentary was hilarious; it was mostly brief YouTube clips people had posted, wild speculation, and a mini-documentary about Captain America. It did show Steve's face out of mask, though, drawn from one of the old films, which meant that Steve was unlikely to be able to go to the all-night pizzeria again without blowing his cover. 

"Welcome to the public faces club," Clint told him. 

Natasha was a mixture of pleased and disgusted by her profile on the show; there was a lot of talk of how a woman was keeping up with an all-male team. On the other hand, it did show her deftly neutralizing several men twice her size. 

"I don't have time to dwell on these people," she said, standing and dusting off her fingers as the nightly news came on. "Coulson?"

"Right behind you," Coulson said, as they disappeared into the hallway. 

"That was a little weird," Peter remarked.

"Eh. Secret agents. No offense," Tony added to Clint.

"None taken," Clint said absently, eyes still on the doorway. "So. Who's on patrol tonight?" 

"Cap and Peter, you and Thor," Tony answered. "Unless you want me to take the squirt out, Cap? You're looking a little gunshy."

"No, I'm fine," Steve said. "I want to run down to that construction site we scouted and have you poke around, Peter. I think there's some building code violations."

"It's come to this," Peter sighed as he got up. "Building code violations. That promised near-apocalypse had better come soon," he said to Clint, who was slinging his quiver on his back.

"Yeah, yeah," Clint replied. "Never hope for a fight, Pete, you might get one." 

***

They didn't get a fight that night, as it happened, at least not more than a normal night of patrol; they nabbed a mugger, gave a hilarious warning to a guy they happened to see run a stop sign who just about passed out when Cap loomed through his window, and signed autographs for the security guard who caught them exploring the building site. When they finally broke for the night, Peter suggested that they could still technically get pizza, as long as Steve waited for him around the corner. Steve, who couldn't dislike modern pizza as much as he claimed to, agreed and loitered at the corner while Peter swung by the takeout window. 

When he ordered their usual, a slice of pepperoni and a slice of olive, the man looked at him, nodded with unusual gravity, and handed him two cheap to-go boxes.

"Gratis, for you," he said, when Peter offered him cash. "For you and the Captain, no charge."

Peter blinked up at him. The man shrugged.

"I saw the show tonight. I know who your friend is," he said. "Hero money is no good here. You come back any time, free slice." He lowered his voice, leaning through the window. "Are you Spider-man?"

Peter put a finger to his lips. The man nodded.

"We knew you were not a terrorist," he said. "NEXT!" 

Peter retreated to the corner, offered Steve the slice with olives, and then handed him back his cash.

"What happened?" Steve asked. 

"He made us. They say our money's no good there," Peter said.

"Aw -- bless it," Steve said. He could swear like a true proficient in the middle of a fight, but Peter had never heard him swear when he wasn't punching someone. "Sorry, Peter."

"Why? Free pizza," Peter said. Steve raised an eyebrow. "Look, I'm the first to freak out when I think someone knows who I am, but if that guy was gonna tell he'd have told already and SHIELD would be waiting in ambush for us. Nothing to be done about it now. Besides…" he shrugged. "The reason I kept it secret was to protect the people I love. Now I have nine other people helping out with that. I am choosing not to panic this time." 

"I think that's very mature of you," Steve said as they walked, keeping to the shadows out of instinct. He inhaled and tipped his head back, savoring the moment. "I never thought I'd miss somethin' boring like walking around New York."

"New York's the greatest city on earth," Peter said. "Nothing boring about it."

"I know that now," Steve agreed. "But it seemed like when -- well, when I was your age -- all I wanted was to get over to Europe. Then we all got over there and half the guys just wanted to go home again."

"Did you?" Peter asked.

"Not until the work was done. I didn't go because I thought it'd be fun. I went because it was the right thing to do." 

"You don't talk about the war much," Peter said. 

"Not much to say. I mean yeah, I guess I could tell stories, but what would be the point? Better to focus on the present," Steve replied. "There's a lot of work to be done here, too."

"Seems like at this point we're just waiting for something to happen."

"We might be. I don't think Natasha is. She's planning something."

"You think?"

"Hopefully not something too deceptive," Steve said. "But Clint's not worried yet, and Tony's team leader. He's more suspicious of Natasha than any of us, so if he's not after her to find out what's going on, I'll follow his lead." 

They didn't have long to wait to find out. The next afternoon, when they woke, Clint and Natasha were gone.

***

"I've sent them upstate," Coulson said, when Tony raised the alarm that their two former SHIELD agents were missing. 

"We don't keep secrets from each other," Tony said. "Especially not from the _team leader_."

"There wasn't time to waste once we had a location, and before that we were speculating. I made the call," Coulson said. Before Tony could object, he brought up a hologram of a floating blue box that Steve recognized immediately. "Some of you may know what this is."

"The Tesseract," Steve said, but two other voices said it in unison with his. He glanced at Thor, then at Tony. 

"How do you know of it?" Thor asked, crossing his arms. "It is a valued relic of my father's treasury. It was lost centuries ago. It has come to Midgard?"

"It's been on Midgard," Steve said. "Schmidt found it during the war, seventy years ago. He was using it to build weapons."

Thor looked at him, aghast. "Weapons!"

"Everything from guns to bombs to airplanes. Incredibly powerful ones, really war-ending stuff if he could have industrialized it, but we kept torching his factories. It was my primary mission during the war," Steve said. He turned to Tony. "Your dad was working with the guns we captured, trying to figure out what was going on. But it -- " he shook his head. "It fell out of the plane I was on, right before I went down. It's somewhere at the bottom of the ocean."

"Don't look at me," Tony said. "I saw it in his notes. I thought it was a theoretical exercise." 

"It wasn't," Coulson said. "Howard Stark recovered the Tesseract in 1952."

" _What?_ " Steve and Tony asked in unison. 

"It was turned over to SHIELD. Technically. Our records indicated it was considered to be in Stark's custody until his death."

"Why wouldn't he use it for his own weapons?" Pepper asked. She glanced at Tony. "If it was so powerful -- I mean -- "

Tony rubbed his face. "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

"Come again?" Loki asked.

"Dad wrote it in his notes below the calculations on the Tesseract. It's a quote from the Bhagavad Gita, but it's more famous in this country for being what Oppenheimer thought when they detonated the first atomic bomb. Which my dad worked on." He leaned forward. "The bomb spooked Dad. He spent his life making weapons but he knew a quantum leap forward when he saw it. He knew we should never have had it so soon. He was at the forefront of weapons manufacture and he still probably held the industry back by twenty or thirty years at least."

"Human civilization wasn't ready for that kind of power," Bruce said. "We still aren't."

"Yeah. I'm guessing when he saw the Tesseract, whole and complete, he knew it was something we weren't supposed to have. He probably locked it up and tried to throw away the key. But nothing ever really gets thrown away once SHIELD knows about it," Tony said. "They're working on it now, aren't they?"

Coulson nodded.

"Tash and Clint went to stop them?"

"To retrieve the Tesseract, if possible," Coulson agreed. 

"Should have left it at the bottom of the ocean," Steve murmured. 

"Why now?" Tony asked.

"Ah," Loki said, with the air of someone working out a complex problem. Everyone turned to look at him. "The Tesseract can be used to open a portal to other realms, among its other attributes. One of those realms, or rather the space between them, contains an army massed for war."

Tony let his head fall to the table with a light _thunk._ Pepper rested a hand on the back of his head. 

"The Chitauri?" Thor asked. "Those are just a legend."

"On Midgard, so are you," Coulson pointed out.

"I passed through their realm in the void," Loki said. "They are real. I know they wish to claim Midgard. To bring so many soldiers through would require the power of the Tesseract." 

"What kind of army?" Tony asked, voice slightly muffled. 

"Massive," Loki replied. "Mythologically epic. Their war-leader has some influence in this world somehow -- not much, but clearly enough. He managed to place me here. It is possible he may be manipulating those in possession of the Tesseract into building a gateway."

"We are so boned," Peter said. "We should have gone with Clint and Natasha."

"They'll get further alone," Coulson said. "They know how SHIELD operates. Loki, I want a workup of what kind of firepower this army has. Stark, SHIELD confiscated your father's notes when they brought you in."

"I can reproduce some of them," Tony said. "The math wasn't complicated, just esoteric. Don't know if it'll help. He was calculating its potential as a power source, not a dimensional prism. On the other hand..." he got a thoughtful look. "Yeah, gimme a few hours in the workshop."

"I can help. These readings…" Bruce said, studying the Tesseract and the scrolling information next to it. "They involve Gamma radiation." 

"Go," Coulson said. 

"What can we do?" Steve asked, as Tony and Bruce hurried from the room.

"Be ready to intercept SHIELD, if Natasha and Clint don't get away clean. Other than that, not much," Coulson said. He looked at Thor. "Can you contact your father?"

"Could I, I would have before now," Thor said, exchanging a glance with Loki. "The bridge is broken; we have not heard from Asgard since..." 

"Well, I know how _I_ got back to Earth," Loki said. 

"When the bridge was broken, it severed ties to Midgard," Thor said. "I was on the far side from Asgard when I shattered it. I had no options; it was either remain at the separation point or leap to Midgard."

"Heimdall may see us," Loki offered.

"If he does, he cannot help," Thor replied. "The Allfather may summon enough dark magic to return to Midgard, but if the Tesseract is active, he may create a rift through which these Chitauri could come. I always thought they were a cautionary tale against such travel." 

"So we're on our own," Coulson said. 

"Well," Loki said. "You do have us."

"That's what I was afraid you'd say," Coulson replied. 

***

Clint and Natasha returned the next day with a suitcase and matching pair of grim expressions. When they opened the suitcase, a blue glow filled the room.

"We have a problem," Natasha said. Tony, already reaching for the enticing new playtoy they'd brought, found his wrist grasped firmly by Steve, who shook his head. 

"Don't touch it without gloves," he said. He looked up at Natasha, his hand still holding Tony's wrist. "It's not stable. It didn't look like that before."

He hadn't seen it for very long, but he remembered how it had looked -- square, blue, almost like frosted glass. Now it looked more like some kind of perverse living creature. The corners of the cube bent in on themselves, rounding off, and then seemed to straighten again if he looked at it from the corner of his eye. The planes on each side bulged occasionally. The glow was bright and constant, not the self-contained light from the engine of Schmidt's plane. 

"No, it's not," Natasha replied. 

"They were activating it when we got there," Clint said. "Or, I guess it was activating itself, because they seemed freaked out about it."

"How'd you get it out?" Bruce asked, arms crossed as if he, too, wanted to touch it but was preventing himself. 

"Natasha caused a distraction. I put an explosive arrow into the apparatus holding it," Clint replied. 

"Well, that could have taken out about a third of the Earth's surface," Tony said, tugging his wrist out of Steve's grasp. He picked up a Starkpad and began working on it, glancing occasionally at the cube. 

"Didn't," Clint said with a shrug. "Tash grabbed it in the confusion. We took some fire, nothing serious. Fury threatened to slit me from cock to chin." 

"Operative D got us out," Natasha continued. "But it's obvious this thing is trouble."

"First instinct is to throw it the fuck into the sun," Clint said. 

"At least, to get it out of New York," Coulson agreed. "But there is no minimum safe distance if it...expends." He glanced questioningly at Tony, who shook his head.

"It's cycling energy somehow. I don't know what its capacity is, but -- " 

"Not much more," Bruce said, panic rising in his voice. 

Tony checked his readout, and almost on instinct yelled "EVERYONE DOWN, MARK NINE NOW!" 

Peter and Steve hit the floor as the armor came zooming towards them. Coulson dodged two gauntlets just before Tony raised his hands to catch them, and as soon as they were on he grabbed the Tesseract and started running for the underground tunnel that led to Iron Man's escape route. He stepped into the boots as he ran, jumped high enough to get the chestplate and leg plates on, and dove into the helmet, boot jets activating. He hit the tunnel doing top speed, zipped around a wide curve, and burst out of the bay doors in the middle of the walled garden they'd built on one side of the Tower. 

"JARVIS, everything to boot jets," Tony said, lighting up the windows of Stark Tower as he rose. "If I pass out, keep grips on this baby."

"Sir -- "

"Just do it," Tony said, heart hammering in his chest. He knew he couldn't actually feel it, knew the Tesseract wasn't radiating heat at all, but it felt hot in his arms. If he could leave the atmosphere, he might have a chance of getting the Tesseract so far away it would -- 

Well, realistically, it might pack enough power to wobble the Earth on its axis, or throw both Earth and its moon out of orbit. Still, you never knew your luck.

His armor failed just as he passed the top of Stark Tower.

It was a total and complete failure, and he could feel it throwing sparks. The Tesseract had shorted him out somehow, and as he hung in the air before free fall he wondered if this had been the plan all along: the simple, pure destruction of Earth. 

He started to fall, aiming for the Tower's helipad, aware he would crash through at least a dozen floors but might survive to watch the Tesseract go critical in his hands. 

Instead there was a sudden thump, and he looked out through the armor's eyeslits to see Thor, tumbling through the air with him, slowing his fall. They hit the helipad hard but not apocalyptically so, and the Tesseract tumbled away. Tony scrambled for it as the armor rebooted.

"It's too late," Thor cried, grabbing him around the waist, holding him back. "Look up, Tony. Look at the sky."

Tony ripped his helmet off and stared upwards. There was a hole in the sky over Manhattan. And, slowly, there were monsters emerging from it. 

He heard Clint's voice over the comm in his helmet. "Man, Peter, I _warned_ you about wanting a fight!"

***

A year after the Battle of Manhattan, a book was published about it; a few had already come out, mostly speculation and dense historical records. This one was slimmer than the others, and it was everything they hadn't been: informative, detailed, and above all, emotional. It was published anonymously but went bestseller immediately, and the royalties set up May Parker (who had been a journalist, once upon a time, and knew how to stir her audience) for life. 

Most of it was a firsthand account, written by someone who had stood on the Stark Tower helipad that day and watched. Some of it described the chaos in the streets. A few pages were dedicated to statistics: buildings damaged, lives lost, the cost of the cleanup at the time of printing. But there were two sections, close together, which were simple transcripts of recordings, the first leaked to the author by an insider at SHIELD, the second drawn from the Avengers' own records. 

The SHIELD recording was verified by SHIELD, who had nothing to lose from the information it contained: that control had been taken from the organization by the World Security Council, who had ordered two pilots with nuclear warheads to destroy Manhattan, hoping to end the Chitauri incursion. Nick Fury cursed on it a lot, and shot one of the planes down before it could leave the runway. 

The Avengers recording was much more personal. 

LOKI: I need more time. 

HAWKEYE: We don't have more time, we're getting our asses kicked down here!

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Loki, how can I assist? 

LOKI: The Tesseract was never meant to be mechanically manipulated. I can stop it but I need time! 

BLACK WIDOW: We'll buy you all we can. Stark, if you can blow another hole in one of the Leviathans -- 

IRON MAN: Little busy right now. 

CAPTAIN AMERICA: Do you need assist, Iron Man?

IRON MAN: Not much you can do about the nuke stuck to my back.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Repeat?

IRON MAN: Just keep fighting, guys, I got this one. 

SPIDER-MAN: WHO IS TRYING TO NUKE NEW YORK, DO WE NOT ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH ISSUES HERE -- 

IRON MAN: I GOT THIS, stop bitching, oh my god. 

SPIDER-MAN: I'm taking it personally, I live in New York! 

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: SHIELD would never fire on New York. That has to be the WSC. 

LOKI: Not really information I need right now, thank you. 

HAWKEYE: Where are you taking it, Stark?

IRON MAN: Up through the rift. 

CAPTAIN AMERICA: That's a one-way trip.

IRON MAN: Then I guess you get to be team leader. Loki, I need you to be able to seal the rift -- 

LOKI: I'm trying, it's not -- if I had my tools, proper tools -- 

BLACK WIDOW: What do you need? 

THOR: The lance of ice. 

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Repeat? 

LOKI: The lance of ice. It's in Father's treasury. Prize of the Ice Giants. It could cool the Tesseract. Make it -- malleable, manageable. 

THOR: You cannot -- you have power, Loki, could you not -- do something -- 

LOKI: Not unless you want endless winter on Midgard, brother. 

IRON MAN: Running short on time here, boys. 

THOR: Call Heimdall.

LOKI: I can't -- I -- 

THOR: YOU CAN. CALL HIM!

LOKI: HEIMDALL! HEAR ME!

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Hawkeye, on your six. 

HAWKEYE: ON IT. 

LOKI: HEIMDALL! THE LANCE OF ICE. 

BLACK WIDOW: Shit, Cap's down. 

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Who's at his location? 

CAPTAIN AMERICA: I'm not down, I'm fine. Focus on the portal.

LOKI: ODIN, WE NEED THE LANCE. HEIMDALL -- FATHER -- PLEASE -- 

IRON MAN: Entering the rift. Pep -- [static]

LOKI: FATHER! [crashing]

SPIDER-MAN: Oh my god, they're dead, we're fucked. 

CAPTAIN AMERICA: Keep fighting! 

HAWKEYE: Hulk's got another Leviathan. 

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Widow, your location is closest. 

BLACK WIDOW: Heading for assist. 

LOKI: I have the lance. This may destroy the building, madam, you should probably run. 

[faint: "I'm not going anywhere" or possibly "I'm not leaving [indistinguishable]"]

CAPTAIN AMERICA: Iron Man, if you can hear me, get back here. We can close the rift.

LOKI: I'm ready.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: Hold on my mark. 

BLACK WIDOW: Can you see him?

HAWKEYE: It detonated. I can see up through from here. Jesus Christ, Jesus H. Christ oh my god -- 

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Keep it together, Hawkeye.

HAWKEYE: Keep your face together, this is some major shit happening and I'm underneath it! 

CAPTAIN AMERICA: Do it, Loki. 

LOKI: Closing the rift. 

[Static crackling]

CAPTAIN AMERICA: Son of a bitch. 

SPIDER-MAN: What? What's happening? 

BLACK WIDOW: He's not stopping. 

SPIDER-MAN: WHO'S NOT STOPPING? 

THOR: I can catch him -- 

[Crashing]

CAPTAIN AMERICA: Tony. Tony, come on. Hulk didn't just do a thirty-story dive to save your ass for you to end up dead, come on, Tony -- 

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I'm trying to send medical to your location. 

THOR: Has he fallen? 

CAPTAIN AMERICA: I don't know, I can't get a heartbeat -- 

IRON MAN: OH MY GOD WHAT JUST HAPPENED. 

[Silence, then laughter; unable to decipher source.]

SPIDER-MAN: We won. We won, right? Did we win? Please tell me we won, I'm like, one big bruise and I think I broke a wrist. 

CAPTAIN AMERICA: Yeah, [redacted]. We won. 

SPIDER-MAN: Yay, us. 

IRON MAN: Pepper's gonna kill me.

SPIDER-MAN: Hey, does anyone else want pizza? I want pizza.


	7. Chapter 7

The pizza place was open, sort of, when the Avengers reached it. The owner was there, anyway, and the ovens were on; they'd been preheating for the dinner rush when the Chitauri attacked. The owner saw them coming -- war-torn, bloodied, bruised, exhausted -- and nodded at Peter, whose cowl was ripped down over one eye and rolled up to uncover his mouth.

"I put a pie in the oven," he said, ushering them inside and turning the sign on the door to CLOSED. "Come in, sit down." 

"Should we be doing speeches or something?" Clint asked as they arranged themselves, pushing two tables together to make enough room. The owner set several six-packs of soda on the table, added a pitcher of water, and disappeared again. 

"Pep's on it," Tony said, looking up from his phone. Well, a phone he'd found and absconded with, anyway, because his radio was down. He turned back to it with a start and spoke into it. "No, he's fine. Cap looked him over. Yeah, we are too." He rolled his eyes. "Guys, May says Pep sends everyone but me her love, I might be sleeping on the couch tonight. Well, no," he continued, turning back to the phone. "No, I understand -- yes, May. Yes, May. No, ma'am, I won't fly nukes into outer space ever again. Okay." He handed the phone to Peter. "Mama's proud of you, baby."

"Shut up," Peter said to Tony, putting the phone up to his ear. He wandered back out to the street to talk to her, while the others sat down and exchanged exhausted looks. 

"I told you," Natasha said finally. "I told you if we waited long enough we'd get a supervillain."

"Admittedly I was hoping for something a little mellower," Clint said. "Like I dunno. Stilt Man."

"Stilt Man?" Steve asked.

"Yeah, you know, he'd be a supervillain on stilts." Clint looked around the table. "What? That's like a mid-level threat." 

"I hear you talking but all I can think of is Inspector Gadget," Bruce mumbled into his folded arms. Tony patted his hair, then stood up to fiddle with a television on a rack in the corner of the room. 

"Well, I for one -- " Loki began, then broke off with a hiss. Thor was bent over his brother's hands, cleaning them with a bottle of vodka taken from a nearby liquor store (Steve had insisted on leaving twenty dollars on the cash register). His palms and fingers were red and blistered, painful looking. "Have a care, Thor."

"The pain means it's working," Thor said ruthlessly. 

"I for one _Thor!_ think it's a shame we weren't on Asgard. There would be epic poems written to our glory," Loki said. "As it stands, we yet have no guarantee SHIELD will not continue to pursue us. They may blame us. We had the Tesseract, after all. Well, this is lovely," he added, holding up his hands, now wrapped in napkins and secured with thin cords of Peter's webbing. 

"I told you guys, Pep's on it," Tony said, as the television crackled to life. "Hah."

" -- no statement to make at this time, but we're sure they will soon," Pepper was saying on the television. She looked pale and worried, and she had a million microphones in her face, but she was clearly holding it together. Her head tilted; someone must have called a question, but all the mics were on her. "Stark Industries speaks for the Avengers as a sponsor and with Tony Stark's authority," she said. "Yes, Tony Stark is the leader of the Avengers, and their gear is supplied primarily by Stark Industries. This is a dedicated team assembled by Mr. Stark and committed to the defense of the nation, as Iron Man has been for several years. They are not under contract to any government organization or military power, including SHIELD. Look, you can argue about this all you want, but the Avengers are independent agents. They act within the law under the Good Samaritan clause and they have not, nor will they, otherwise acknowledge the dictates of any specific governing body. They have no power to arrest, search, seize, or imprison anyone. They're here to fight the good fight. That's our final comment for now. Stark Industries will be issuing further press releases in the morning."

"I am so turned on right now," Tony said.

"We got 'em," Clint said. "SHIELD's fucked." He turned to Natasha and held up his palm for a high five. She gave him a withering look and put a can of soda into it. Tony, returning to the table, opened a soda, took a long drink, then picked up the bottle of vodka and poured a shot into the can, swirling it to mix it. He passed the vodka to Steve, who took a drink directly from the bottle and then handed it to Bruce, who set it well out of Tony's reach. 

"Aunt May sends her love," Peter said, returning just as steaming hot pizzas arrived. "I think the whole lance of ice thing freaked her out. She's helped herself to the bar, Tony."

"God love her, I wish I could, this is some shitty vodka," Tony said. He shifted in his seat to regard Loki. "Up side, you didn't blow up the building, good job."

"And the Tesseract is secure," Loki agreed. "So long as it remains impaled upon the lance, it remains inert. I took the liberty of storing it in your offensively large freezer."

"Hey, the penthouse is for parties, the caterers need somewhere to put the ice cream." 

"So how do we get rid of this thing?" Peter asked around a mouthful of pizza. "It's like nuclear waste. It's there, it's dangerous, it's our problem." 

"Father must be aware we have it," Thor said. "He may wish to collect it, or send an emissary to do so." He glanced at Loki. "We could return to Asgard."

"Suit yourself," Loki said. "I shan't."

"Well, Midgard does need champions," Thor said. 

"What are we, chopped liver?" Clint asked. 

"You fought very valiantly with your little bow," Loki said, grinning. 

"Oh man, if I wasn't sore everywhere I would fight you," Clint groaned. 

"I choose my offensives," Loki said. He fumbled around with his bandaged hands until he got a slice of pizza in them, eating as daintily as the bandages and the pizza would allow. 

"Well, SHIELD got the message," Natasha said, consulting the phone Tony had tossed onto the table. "Coulson says Fury offered to rehire him if he could bring us back."

"Us, us?" Clint asked.

"All of us. He's offering amnesty for any Avenger who wants a paid gig with SHIELD."

"Tell Coulson to tell Fury he can shove it up his helicarrier," Steve suggested. Peter choked and thumped his chest, reaching for one of the sodas. 

"Excuse you, negotiations are my job," Tony said. 

"Did you have a different response?" Natasha asked.

"No. But tell him I said it." 

She smiled and returned to texting. "Tony, Coulson says he'd sell you out to get his Captain America trading cards back from his locker, but we need your bankroll." 

"There are trading cards?" Steve asked faintly.

"Don't think about it right now," Tony said. "Though I'm making a note about action figures." 

***

That night, the Avengers exhaustedly dragged themselves home and fell asleep without much concern for social graces. The following morning, May, Pepper, and Coulson began chiseling them out of the basement and escorting them upstairs to their new quarters. 

"The top of the tower," Steve said appreciatively, standing at the wide, tall windows of the penthouse. This was Tony's domain, but the Avengers had spent too long sharing spaces to be overly concerned with knocking or asking permission. Tony had offered each of them a floor, but they were using barely half that -- Peter had insisted Steve move in with him and Aunt May, Loki and Clint were setting up what sounded like the ultimate bachelor pad with Thor, and Natasha was splitting an apartment with Bruce. The only one who seemed to prefer solitude was Coulson, who pretty clearly liked his own space. 

"Have a look at that view," Clint agreed, lounging on a nearby sofa. "I feel like a king."

"I feel like I got the crap beat out of me yesterday," Tony replied. Overnight, bruises from where he'd been thrown around in the suit had blossomed, huge and purple, on his forehead and shoulders, one large one peeking out from under the hem of his pants. He was laid out on the floor, an ice pack on one shoulder. Natasha was next to him, face down, with a heating pad on her back. 

"Well, yeah, that too," Clint agreed, scratching the bandages over cuts from where he'd gone through a window at one point. Steve felt a twinge of guilt; he and Peter and the Asgardians could heal quickly, and Bruce didn't even take damage the way they did, but the rest of the team was suffering. 

"We have time, and luxury in which to recover," Thor said, eating cold cereal straight from the box. Nearby, Loki rolled his eyes from behind a newspaper. "Besides, should another threat arise, my brother and I stand ready to fight."

"Don't rub it in," Tony groaned. 

"Sir, I am receiving an urgent request for access," JARVIS announced. Tony pushed himself up on his less-bruised elbow.

"Just one?" he asked.

"This may be the most relevant one," JARVIS replied, flicking the giant television screen on. A security camera from the lobby showed a woman and a man standing in front of the elevators. She was looking up at the ceiling; he was looking up at the camera. 

"Erik Selvig!" Thor cried in surprise. "And Jane Foster! I must go to them!"

"Hang on, hot stuff," Tony called, as Thor hurried towards the door. "JARVIS, elevate them up here."

"Of course, sir," JARVIS replied, and on the screen the elevator doors opened. 

"You know them?" Steve asked.

"Yes! Jane Foster is my estranged beloved," Thor said cheerfully. "Selvig is a good friend." 

"I should go," Loki announced, but Thor grabbed him by the arm before he could move. "Thor."

"You will accept whatever punishment the lady Jane sees fit to mete," Thor said. 

"I never touched her!"

"You blew up her town," Thor said. 

"It wasn't even hers. And I gave her a very interesting experience -- really, she should thank me," Loki replied, as the elevator dinged and the door opened. 

Thor surged forward, releasing Loki, and swept the woman, Jane, up in his arms. She squeaked in surprise. He set her down and clapped the man on the back so hard he nearly fell over. 

"Welcome to Stark Tower, yadda yadda," Tony said, waving a hand and not getting up. He had the ice pack over his face now. "Make yourselves at home, god knows everyone else has."

"My friends," Thor said. "May I introduce Doctor Jane Foster, the valiant astrophysicist, and her mentor Doctor Erik Selvig, the brave and foolhardy."

"I went drinking with him once," Selvig said.

"All is explained," Peter agreed. 

Steve had kept an eye on Loki, who was quietly trying to sneak around them and into the elevator. Thor caught him again at the last second and dragged him in front of Jane. 

"Tell her," Thor said darkly. Loki glared at him. "Do it, brother."

Loki sighed. "I am very sorry for New Mexico," he said. 

"Loki."

"And for causing you much pain."

"And?"

"And I will submit myself to any punishment you see fit," Loki finished, turning what Steve knew was his best hangdog look on Jane Foster. 

She put her hands on her hips, scowling. Everyone tensed. 

"If it's any consolation," Natasha said, "He means like sixty percent of that." 

"It's not," Jane replied. She slapped Loki, hard enough to turn his head. "That was for New Mexico."

Loki reached up to prod his jaw, gingerly, and almost startled away when she leaned over and kissed his cheek.

"That's for saving New York," she added. 

"I like her," Loki said to Thor.

***

Two days after the battle, JARVIS summoned the Avengers to the helipad from their new digs at the top of Stark Tower. Most of them arrived just as the helicopter touched down. Pepper, who had gotten there first, saw Nick Fury disembark and start towards him.

"Get back in your helicopter and go," she said.

"Ms. Potts -- "

"No, you have no business here. You are trespassing on private property and if you don't have a warrant I'm going to call Security and have them watch while the Avengers remove you from my tower." 

"Wasn't my aim to hurt you," he said. "Side-effect of my line of work."

"Well, it's so comforting to know my personal suffering was your business as usual," she retorted. She could hear the others coming forward; Tony took her hand, and Natasha placed herself slightly in front of her, almost nose to nose with Fury. 

"We have some business to discuss," he said instead. "I come in peace. Amnesty papers," he added, holding up an envelope in one hand. "I'm hoping we can do this like civilized people."

"Director Fury," May said, and Fury glanced to the side. "I really do think this is bad manners."

"There's no elegant way to admit defeat," Fury said.

"How about admitting defeat?" Jane asked. 

"Dr. Foster. Unsurprising to see you here."

"Well, I thought the tower was free of jack-booted thugs," Jane replied. 

"This isn't getting us anywhere," Steve said. "Apologize and go, Director." 

"We did what we did with the best of intentions for the general welfare," Fury said. 

"Wow, that sounds nothing like 'I'm sorry'," Peter said. "Steve?"

"Well, I'm not up on modern slang," Steve said. 

"The situation has changed," Fury continued, ignoring them. "We've come to the understanding that exceptional threats require exceptional responses."

"There were nuclear weapons," Bruce remarked. 

"That was not our decision."

"You had the nukes," Tony pointed out. 

"That's not the point!" Fury said, briefly showing a flash of anger before cooling. "SHIELD acknowledges that imprisoning superhumans without just cause is no longer an option."

Bruce tilted his head and said, "Huh." Everyone looked at him. When Bruce said "Huh" that way, it generally meant he'd made a leap the rest of them hadn't yet followed. 

"What is it?" Thor asked him.

"Word's already leaked that the WSC was behind the nukes," Bruce said. "Must have been quite a PR coup for you. Got them off your back, too. I wonder what else they were behind?"

"SHIELD acted alone in imprisoning you," Fury said, but it was obviously a recited speech. He gave Bruce a quick side-eye. 

"So you're not even the enemy," Peter said. 

"The WSC gave you orders," Natasha said. "They pulled the strings on this."

Fury looked at her. "You are formally offered your job back, Agent Romanoff."

She said something in Russian.

"My grandmother spits on your shadow," Tony translated, out of the corner of his mouth. 

"Understanding that you've rejected our offer of direct oversight, moving forward, SHIELD would like to be kept abreast of Avengers actions in order to provide assistance," Fury said. 

"We'll send you a postcard," Pepper replied. 

"Then our discussion is concluded," Fury said. "Agent Coulson, I'd like a private word with you if I may." 

Tony started forward, but Coulson put up a hand and strolled over to the edge of the Tower.

"Thor, if Fury throws him off the edge, you go after Agent," Tony said. "Cap and Peter, you take Fury." 

"What if Coulson throws Fury off?" Clint asked.

"Eh," Tony said with a shrug. 

***

Fury leaned on the railing, peering over for a moment. "So who goes after you if I throw you over?"

"You're incorrectly assuming that you could," Coulson responded. 

"Yeah, maybe. I cleaned out your locker," Fury said. He handed Coulson a slim box. "Thought you'd want your cards back. Surprised you left them behind."

"I got held up," Coulson replied, tucking the box in the inner pocket of his suit. 

"SHIELD is earnest in its offer of support for the Avengers."

"Are we speaking as equals now?" Coulson asked, sounding almost surprised. 

"You want me to do this with Stark?"

"Then someone really would go over the rail," Coulson said. "Why didn't you say the WSC was behind the Superhuman Detention op?" 

"People like the WSC don't understand theory, only practical," Fury said. "We needed the Avengers, who needed a reason to come together, and we needed to give the WSC enough rope to hang themselves. Seemed to kill two birds with one stone." 

"You imprisoned good people. They had lives."

Fury nodded. "And then they got powers. I didn't choose that. I could only respond." He leaned in a little. "What we're seeing here is an idea that's come to stay, Phil. How we react now to superhumans in our midst for the next thirty, fifty, a hundred years, we're setting that precedent right now. The Avengers will be a blueprint for times yet to come."

"Getting a little Messianic there," Coulson said, but he was smiling. "Message understood. We'll be in touch."

Fury nodded, starting towards the helicopter. "Call me."

"I'll just yell into the bug you put in the card case," Coulson replied, pointing to his pocket.

"Had to try," Fury said, spreading his arms. "Got my eye on you, Phil." 

***

"What was that about?" Tony asked, when the helicopter had taken off again with Fury inside it. 

"Just returning some property to me," Coulson said, checking his phone. 

"Check it for bugs," Natasha said. 

"Way out ahead of you," Coulson replied. "Upshot is, the Avengers are free and clear." 

Peter jumped up on Steve's shoulders, smacking him on the arm. "Hear that? You and me, running tomorrow morning. After dawn. Broad daylight."

"Oh good, I can go outside if I ever decide that staying inside away from the population is less than necessary," Bruce said with a smile. 

"Come on, Pep and I'll take you out to dinner at our favorite place," Tony said. "Very exclusive, very quiet, I promise." 

"So what do we do now?" Peter asked. "We're still going to be patrolling, right? Do we start chasing down bad guys again? Because taking out Lizard, that was a good time." 

"I hadn't thought past getting amnesty," Steve said. "What _do_ we do now?" he asked Natasha.

"Oh, I thought we'd all be dead by now," she said. 

"I don't think that question will be a problem," Coulson said, still scrolling through his phone.

"Why not?" Steve said. 

Coulson held the phone up. A headline on the screen read **JUSTIN HAMMER - DARING DAYLIGHT ESCAPE**. 

"Someone texted me about it but the text says he was taken from prison by superhuman...'ninjas'," Coulson said. "I think it autocorrected from villains. I hope it autocorrected from villains." 

"Are ninjas in my contract?" Peter asked. 

"Who's Justin Hammer?" Steve asked. 

"He's a eunuch," Natasha said.

"Seriously?" Steve asked.

"He will be when I find him." 

"He's an old business rival, almost blew me up one time," Tony said. "He's in prison for being a dickpull." 

"I wasn't aware that was a crime," Steve said drily.

"It is when he does it." 

"I'll start assembling intel," Coulson interrupted. "Clint and Natasha with me. Stark -- "

"Gonna get a jump on putting extra security in place," Tony said. "Bruce, you can help, it's just some programming. Justin's predictable, he'll probably try to kidnap Pep."

"Ugh, male chauvinist supervillains," Pepper said, as Tony took off for his workshop. Bruce offered her his arm to escort her after Tony. 

"I need you to bring me up to speed," Steve said in an undertone to Peter.

"On what?" Peter asked.

"Ninjas, is that a thing now?"

"Come on, I'll show you some movies," Peter said.

"Oh good, I love ninja movies," May added, herding them inside. 

They drifted off in twos and threes, leaving Thor and Loki standing on the pad, looking out at the city.

"We could have gone home, you know," Loki said. "When Father sent for the lance and the Tesseract last night. He offered."

"Did you wish to?"

"No," Loki admitted. "I find myself reluctant to abandon this."

"I think we have much to learn from Midgard. It can only improve our education."

"I don't deny it has some charms. I'm only saying, we could be feasting and flirting with beautiful women right now." 

"I can feast and flirt with a beautiful woman right here," Thor replied. "So could you. We are veritably surrounded by the most beautiful women of the realm. The Lady Natasha looks fairly on you."

"You're making a joke," Loki said. "You're trying to be funny, aren't you?" 

"Would you prefer the Allmother May? She is comely and wise."

"At least she wouldn't kill me for trying. Well, probably," Loki amended. "And you know Midgardians don't know how to properly feast."

"We shall teach them, in time. Come, Loki," Thor said, grinning and clapping him on the arm. "We may return to battle soon. That's heartening, isn't it?"

"Feasting," Loki said meaningfully.

"We will make you popcorn while we learn of these Ninjas with Peter and Allmother May," Thor replied, hauling him towards the door.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Romantic Poets and National Icons](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080736) by [copperbadge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge)




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